Jewel in the Crown

It happened this morning: my grandmother died.

Jewel Mae Michael Blackshire Western passed on to her reward, and I have every confidence that it will be a great one.

She didn't amass a fortune in this life, nor did she seek to. She lived simply and responsibly, as many who lived through the Great Depression have done. But her inheritance in heaven will be substantial.

She's going to have to get used to being a rich lady.

When I was in college about a half-hour or so from her, I'd drop by in the afternoons on a random basis. It was usually the same: she'd get me a glass of iced tea, we'd go out to the front yard to sit under enormous trees, and then we'd talk. She told me stories about the past, and I told her what was going on in my young life.

And before I went back to school, she'd bag me up whatever produce they had, couldn't sell, but was still good.

It was always hard to get out of Grannie's house without one of those bags. Didn't matter much who you were.

My grandfather died before I was born, and she remarried when I was about 4. Grandpa Western, her new husband, was in the produce business, so she ended up in the produce business by default. And they prospered.

Whenever something was in season, they always had the best stuff around. They never made huge amounts of money, but they made enough. I don't know that they wanted for anything, and that in and of itself is an accomplishment.

And on any given weekend, there was no telling who would show up at her house unannounced. 15-20 wasn't unusual. When it came time to eat, there wasn't hardly any room to put a plate on the table because it had so much food on it.

Cakes and pies (she always had a selection in the freezer) went on one end of the kitchen counter, and tea glasses went on the other. At some point, she got a piece of plywood to put over the sink so she could use that space, too.

I remember graduating from one of the kiddie tables to the adult one very well. Sitting at the main table meant I was grown up. (I wasn't, of course, but it made me feel that way.)

She wasn't just a gracious and tolerant hostess, though. Grannie was ahead of her time on a couple issues.

One that many people today might not understand the significance of was her use of the word "negra" as opposed to the other one that I'm not going to use. All her life, she had heard people using that unspecified other derogatory word to refer to people of color. It would probably be perceived as derogatory by many people today, but in her day, “negra” was a respectful way to refer to a person of color. She never graduated to "negro" or "black", and certainly not "African-American". In her mind, she was using respectful language.

The other one that sticks out is the pre-nup she had Grandpa Western sign. It said that all of her assets at the time of their marriage (including the house and land) would convey to her children only. It gave him a life-hold estate on the property, but that was all. On the copy I saw of it, he had written "I did it for love."

Grannie's house sits about a quarter mile off the highway and is surrounded on 3 sides by farm and pasture land. The property backs up to a railroad track and, beyond that, a military arsenal. Whenever there was a rumble in the air, we never knew if it was thunder or them testing munitions next door.

She didn't get an air conditioner until Grandpa Western started to get sick with respiratory problems, so we spent a lot of time in the front yard under those trees. But I don't ever remember not feeling comfortable in that big old house of hers. Tall ceilings, big windows, lots of shade (the front yard was covered in moss because it was too shady for grass to grow) and fans always sufficed.

And I spent a bunch of time there. My cousins and I always seemed to end up in the creek that ran between the house and highway, even though we weren't supposed to be down there. And it got really dark and quiet at night. As the house settled in the cool night air, it creaked and made noises like footsteps in the distance. And in the winter, parts of it get cold, cold, cold. The only heat was a floor furnace in the living room. Some of the best sleep I’ve ever gotten was under the blankets and quilts in the back bedroom where it wasn’t much warmer than a cold, Tennessee winter night.

I miss that place as much as I've missed my grandmother for years.

When Grandpa died, she was already getting a little dotty. I remember her not being able to remember the word for "table", so she said "the thing with 4 legs and a top that sits on the floor". Not long after, she started to get worse. The rest is water under the bridge.

She got worse and worse and worse over the course of the better part of a decade.

I've often wondered whether it's easier to live with someone dieing over a long period of time or going suddenly. I think that both scenarios have their own unique pain. Watching someone die in slow motion is as hard as watching it happen suddenly. They just hurt differently.

Still, the most important part isn't death or how it happens. It's life and how it's been lived. The legacy left behind. The impact one has had on other people.

She lives on in me, my mother, sisters, niece, nephews, her grandkids and great-great-grandkids. Whether we realize it or not, we've all taken some of her with us.

She was a great woman. May she rest in peace and enjoy her well-earned rewards.

Rain, Rain: Go Away

When Shannon told me that Mama called today before I got home from work, I knew it wasn't a good thing. Any time she calls when she knows I'm probably not home, someone's either dead or nearly there. She has my office number, but doesn't have it on her cell phone, and she doesn't want to call me at work with bad news.

The long and short is that my grandmother, her mother, may not make it through the night. So I very probably will be taking my happy ass up to Tennessee some time in the next few days. It'll be a short visit: I can't be away from home too long right now.

We're finalizing audit at work, and Shannon's sister-in-law had her uterus taken out today. I have responsibilities and obligations 750 miles apart from each other, so it'll be tightrope meeting them all. If Daddy were still alive or Morgan (my niece) would be there, I wouldn't worry so much about going home. But he isn't, and she probably can't be.

My little sister is showing herself to be insane, once again, and my older one might or might not go. And if she shows up with her herd of ill-behaved dogs, it'll just make things worse.

For Mama, it'll be something of a relief to see Grandma go, I think. She's been in a nursing home not really knowing who she is for too many years. And as Mama told me tonight, " She's had a long, long life."

But at the same time, I can't imagine that it's ever easy to let go of a parent under any circumstance.

We'll go see Shannon's sister-in-law tomorrow evening, assuming that she's up to it. Then I'll probably start making preparations to be gone for a few days. I don't see an alternative right now.

It's a long trip, but I seem to cycle from one NPR station to the next up the line the whole way there. I'll be caught up on the news, if nothing else. Then I'll come back and finish up loose ends at work. There aren't too many, and if I need to, I'll go back tomorrow evening and tie nice, neat little bows on them.

It don't seem to rain when it don't pour. And right now, I'm desperately in need of a towel and some dry clothes.

The Daddy Plants

When daddy died a little over a year ago, food, plants and (believe it or not) ceramics started showing up at Mama's house. We ate the food (most of it, at least--I brought some of the good Southern pork shoulder that you can't get in Texas back home), and she put the ceramics up on a shelf in the living room. But the plants were taking over her living room. It looked like a florist shop.

When I left to come back home, she insisted that I take one of them with me. I told her I'd probably just kill it. I'm not real good with house plants. Still, she insisted.

I picked out a peace lily. She had another 3 or 4, so I figured she probably wouldn't miss the one I took.

I brought my plant back home, and it immediately started to die. It's not my forte, but I was determined to keep this one alive.

So I went to Lowe's and got some fertilizer stakes. The plant perked up real good. So good that I had to split it into two pieces and put them in different pots.

They languished at first, not getting enough light. The two did not look happy in any way. They were living in a poorly-lit dining room. So I decided to take them outside.

That worked for a while. As long as I kept them watered. They started growing and turning a shade of dark green that looked healthy instead of getting brown around the edges of their leaves.

Then we had a hurricane watch. The storm was tracking straight for us, so I cleared most of everything off the porch, including the plants that seemed to weigh so much more than they ever did before.

And I waited.

Turns out the best place to be in a hurricane is on the dry side. As Ike was barreling in, a strong cold front was coming in just as fast from the Rockies. The storm left most of Galveston in ruins and gave Houston the battering that we'd been expecting in Austin. (It took a sharp turn to the north-east, and Mama ended up getting more weather out of it in Tennessee than we did.)

Once it was clear that the hurricane was going to leave us breezy and dry, I put the plants back out on the front porch, again. It's well-shaded, so they get the diffused light they love. And it's been cool enough (not much over 90) that they haven't wilted.

So now, not only do they dress up our porch, they're thriving.

It's nice. Every time I walk out the front door or come in it, I see them. And they remind me of him. And of the continuity of life.

He's gone in one way, but he's still here in many, many others.

As I told my co-workers when thanking them for the flowers they sent, "I wish you all could have known him. And in a way, you do. He's responsible for the better parts of me."

And he's here in my plants.

Mama planted the crepe myrtle someone sent out in the front yard and put the potted bonsai on the front porch. All where she can see them just by walking outside.

And she gave 2 of the other lily's to my sisters. I don't know what they've done with them, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that they've done pretty much like me.

I know too many people who have too many bad things to say about their fathers, but I cannot join their chorus. Mine was good and honorable and hard-working.

That, by the way, is the measure of a man.

He's gone, but I have what he taught me, mostly by example, so he won't die until I do. And even then, he'll probably go on in my niece and oldest nephew (he raised them, too).

What I and my mother and sisters have left, other than the lessons on how to live life, are the plants.

The Daddy plants.

Moo, Moo

Chase is buying Washington Mutual, the country's largest saving and loan. Since WaMu's stock has been down-graded to below junk, it's worth almost nothing. The announcement came after close of business today, most likely because the Fed typically closes down banks and S&L's on Friday.


Since I wrote that a few minutes ago, I've learned that WaMu got shut down on a Thursday. There had been an un-reported run on the bank beginning September 15. When it's bad enough that a bank gets shut down other than on a Friday, going against regular Fed policy, it's really, really, really bad.

Either that, or they're playing politics and trying to press the issue of a bailout on their terms with Congress. First they had a deal, and now they may or may not.

Either way, it's not good news.

I have been predicting the failure of Washington Mutual for months now, as their stock has gone down and down and then down some more, finally settling at 5% of what it was worth 6 or 8 months ago before it got shut down. And like most of this financial fiasco, watching them bleed to death has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

I am afraid that today's monumental events are a harbinger of things to come: a cascading series of bank failures that could possibly overwhelm even the FDIC. Chase and Bank of America can't buy every failing bank and financial institution. Most of them are going to fail the old-fashioned way.

Flat on their faces.

My boss, who's been around for a long time (I won't reveal her age as a point of discretion and honor), says we're living in unusual times. She's been around for a while and seen pretty much everything. She stood in line to get company money from a failed S&L back when they all melted down.

She sees the world through the lens of history and experience. Her instincts are usually right.

She's nervous, so I'm scared.

Hippy, hippy shakes

This appeared in the NY Times on Friday:

September 19, 2008, 7:12 pm

Why Sergey Brin May Have Disclosed His Risk for Parkinson’s
By Miguel Helft

The Google co-founder Sergey Brin on Thursday disclosed that he carried a genetic mutation that gave him a higher-than-average risk of contracting Parkinson’s disease.

When I called medical experts and financial analysts for comment, the first question I got was: “Why would he disclose that?” They pointed out that since Mr. Brin is disease-free, may never get the disease, and even if he gets it, could likely function at a high level for many years, there was no need to inform shareholders or anyone else.

Mr. Brin declined to be interviewed. But my colleague Allen Salkin had some insights into one of Mr. Brin’s possible motives. Allen chatted with Mr. Brin at a New York party on Sept. 9 to promote 23andMe, the DNA-testing company of which Mr. Brin’s wife, Anne Wojcicki, is a co-founder. During their conversation, Mr. Brin said it could be useful to have one’s DNA code open to the public, where it could follow a sort of open-source model. If his data was public, he said, doctors — or anyone who was interested — could look at his results and make suggestions about how he should handle them, offering treatment suggestions if it showed he might be susceptible to a disease.

“I figure if I put it out there, people would look at it and I’d learn something I need to know sooner than if I hadn’t put it out there,” Mr. Brin told Allen. He also said he would soon start to blog about his DNA.

As of now, if Mr. Brin has received any advice, it is not widely known. The comments section of his blog remains empty.

This was the only response posted

Advice?

When I saw the mention of his disclosure, I figured it was just a way to publicize 23andme. For a zillionaire, who cares what you tell people - it won’t really impact your wealth in any significant way. For the average person, telling people publicly facts about yourself that suggest a health risk is a sure fire way to limit your economic future either by discouraging potential employers from hiring you or by leading insurers to charge you more for medical or life insurance. It really is never a good thing to publicly disclose medial records of any sort. Aside from being a bit of an odd thing to do in my book, it will never help you in any way and could well hurt you financially.
— G Stauffer

This was my response

There is more to Parkinson's than a career or financial viability. When one has to choose between life and stock options, the choice is obvious. So little is know about the disease that any gesture to increase awareness and/or open up new research avenues is a blessing.

Since Mr. Brin doesn't have to worry about things like health insurance or getting a job, he has the liberty to become an advocate. It's a rare opportunity that few of us will ever see: having the stature and visibility to spot light a disease that kills and debilitates too many people.

Watching someone deteriorate from it over time is like watching death in slow motion. Any effort to stop or reverse it deserves serious consideration.

Fallic Symbols

Do I detect illiterate penis-envy?

'Til Death

People take wedding vows every day. “’Til death do us part.” I’m not sure most realize what that means in real terms. Between the vow and death can come illness of epic proportions, whether it’s physical or mental. Between the two can come inconvenience and the reshaping of plans for the future. Between the two falls the test.

Between the words and the deeds lies the truth.

It supercedes any words and is evidenced by deeds. I can tell you anything that comes into my head, but what I do paints the story of who I am in vivid Technicolor for all the world to see.

“’Til death do us part” means sitting in emergency rooms and hospital rooms, waiting for the one you love to make his way back to this reality. It means planning life around someone with mobility impairments.

Those words mean making hard choices. Taking care of someone when he can’t take care of himself. Turning off life support, even though it kills you inside.

The things that couples come apart over amaze me. They sleep around when they have what they need at home. There’s more to a relationship than sex. No relationship can be sustained by it alone. It is ephemeral and passes with the orgasm.

What lasts is the longing to be home, the sheer joy of walking in a front door where you know someone’s waiting for you, whether he’s taking a nap or not.

Dorothy was right. There’s no place like home. Especially if the man you love is there, asleep or not. He’s there. And it’s the best part of your day. Just coming home.

That’s what “’Til death” means.

Waiting for God

Hurricane Ike has wreaked havoc everywhere it’s landed. Haiti and Cuba are both struggling to recover. The sea walls in Key West held, but the amount of water sloshing over them created flooding that I wouldn’t want to put up with.

Just from the outer rain bands and the generally disgruntled ocean.

And now it’s headed here, or somewhere in the vicinity. Yesterday, we were in the direct path of category 2 storm. Today, the projected path has moved north. It may or may not even rain here. That’s what happened with Rita.

It was supposed to hit us as a tropical storm, but it wandered off over east Texas. Gave them hell, but didn’t affect us one bit.

Except that the stores were out of bottled water, and canned goods ran short.

We still have our Rita stockpile of food and water, so I’m not too worried. The gas distributors are closing down shipments to local stations so as not to have tanker trucks blown around like toys and to have supplies on hand for emergency vehicles.

I filled up the tank last night, so that’s not a problem. We could get from here to almost Texarkana if we had to.

At work, our policy is to follow the school districts when it comes to weather-related closures. I'll be getting off at noon to come home and try to secure the place.

All this, and we may or may not get a drop of rain.

But then we could get a flood.

God will decide, I suppose, but only in His time. Until then, my nerves will be raw. Knowing that something bad lurks over the horizon is eminently better than knowing of its possibility but having nothing more than forecasts that don’t always mirror reality.

They’ve just updated again, and I have to take everything off the patio in front of our apartment tomorrow. The track has moved again, and we may or may not have 40-60 mph winds.

We live far inland. In the middle of Texas. It takes hours to drive to the nearest coast. And I’m worried about tropical storms and hurricanes.

I know that it probably won’t be as bad as it could be. The forecasters milk whatever they have for anything they can get.

God will protect us or not.

I want it to be Saturday already, when at least I know where it’s heading and whether it might hit us or not.

The wait may kill me before the storm does.

The "I" Word

Well, they went and done it tonight. Played the “I” card. The Islam card.

I’ve been wondering how long it would take, and they sent Rudy out as an attack dog. And the mayor who showed up at ground zero on 9/11 didn’t even address the issue of where troops are deployed and who attacked his city.

The Republican party sometimes reminds me of our cats: they’re easily distracted. They’ll play with anything that moves.

But they’re just cats, so I don’t hold it against them.

Not so with US foreign policy.

Afghanistan bred and abetted the attacks of 9/11. But Republicans seem to refuse to believe that the war in Iraq was not only a bad idea, but based on lies built on falsehoods built on calculated deception.

So instead of wrapping up what would have been a much shorter war in less time than we’ve been there, we’ve been pursuing a vanity war that has only weakened our position in the long run. Not only have we pissed off the international community by doing something that so clearly didn’t require immediate attention, we risk losing the war that should have been fought.

How anyone can spin that as a good thing boggles my mind.

There is no way to spin it well without consciously refusing to see the truth. Not without endorsing lies and deception as an acceptable means to an end of dubious merits and undeniably questionable motivations.

So they send Rudy out to use the “I” word.

They’re still trying to scare us into thinking that reasonable foreign policy coupled with valid intelligence will lead to another monumental attack. That brute force will change the course of international politics.

I don’t agree, and believe that every step we take down the path we’re on now leads us only closer to another monumentally heinous event.

I'm shocked, but not awed. Except by the lack of insight and foresight that have gotten us into what will remain an on-going war with a country that did nothing but offend the Chief Executive.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 7:8)

Give me a reasonable answer to that, and I might listen. Since I doubt that you can, just go back to your right wing and huddle with the other sheep who have been given up for the slaughter. And don't be surprised when the country turns against you.

The politics of fear only breeds irrational actions and does nothing to advance the cause of our country, must less the cause of peace.

I, for one, am sick and tired and fed up to my gills with people trying to scaring me into voting for one candidate or the other.

Personally, I’m offended by the whole proposition.

As long as the scare machine keeps churning out drivel, I’m not going to be listening.

I know exactly where I was when I first heard of the attacks on the towers. And I know when I realized it was big. And I watched both fall down on TV. I saw the second one fall from down the hall, watching the only TV that I could see at the time. We were trying to get payroll done early, because it was a Tuesday, and we didn’t know who was going to be shutting down when, so I was just checking in.

When the second one fell, I ran screaming down the hall to that TV screaming “No! No! No! No!”

By the time I got to that little TV, the building was already on the ground.

So don’t try to scare me. I've already done that.

I don’t want scare. I want action. Action that will prevent that awful day from ever happening again. Action that doesn’t include invading a country for very little reason and ignoring the one that counts.

When the first tower fell, I knew it meant war. That was a given. I just didn’t know it would become the wrong war at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.

Since they have nothing left, the Republicans are trying to focus on the economy.

Good luck with that one, too.

Storm Surge

Storms anywhere make me crazy. I woke up at 6:16 this morning, and realized that New Orleans could be under water, again, by lunch. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I just gave in and got up.

It might as well have been happening right outside my front door.

I’m a little psycho like that.

So was my daddy.

Neither of us could sleep if a storm came up and we were still awake. Mama, though, she can sleep through a tornado. She told me about one that hit not too far away when she was a teenager. It sounded like a freight train. She says she’ll either get up or not get up if another one bears down, but she ain’t losing any sleep over it.

Me and Daddy were and are the exact opposite. I can’t count the number of nights we spent sitting up late and listening to the winds howl, watching the picture window in the living room bulging with every gust.

I always expected it to give in at some point. That window wasn’t too strong to start with, and the wind it took amazes me.

It’s been replaced since then, not because it broke, but because it wasn’t double-paned. It was a giant hole in the wall that sucked cool out in the summer and heat in the winter.

Still, I miss that window. It never gave way. We watched and waited. Just me and Daddy.

Coming in from running errands tonight, I heard a coyote. We live in the heart of the city, but we're right next to a creek that either floods downstream or serves as a conduit for wild animals to make their way to our back yard when it isn't.

Our cats like to have run of the place. Nothing new about that, as far as cats go. They all think they own the world, and that it will spin the way they want if they twitch their whiskers just right.

And we've had bad news about Shannon's sister-in-law and another of his close friends. They both have cancer, and neither is doing real well from what I can tell.

I always knew that if the window blew out in Mama's living room, we'd have time to get everyone up an into the hall. But with cancer, I'm at a loss.

I don't know what to do or not do.

Tonight, we have a bunch of storms hitting, and only a few involve wind and rain and windows threatening to give in. I would like nothing better than to call Daddy up and get his take on the story.

Just hear his voice and the calmness he brought to those long nights of us sitting up together.

Maybe it’s not that window I miss so much.