Our eldest daughter Tasia starts school at the University of Michigan in about 2 weeks. This summer has been a blur of getting ready. And by getting ready, I mean materially, but more so emotionally. It has been like a mini-roller coaster ride as we experience each related milestone. Orientation:
I don’t talk about it a lot and I have certainly never written about it. “It” is that twelve years ago, we lost a baby sometime between 16 and 20 weeks of pregnancy. I still feel a stab of pain as I type that.
Do you remember the show Green Acres? It was in reruns when I was a kid. The premise was that a New York lawyer (Eddie Albert) drags his protesting socialite wife (Eva Gavor) to a rural farm outside of the town of “Hooterville”. Hilarity ensues.
We just returned from a week with my parents in Florida. At 80, they continue to amaze; fully independent, active, and enjoying life. But there are changes. My mom’s ankle is now giving her trouble. She visited a specialist who took one look at her X-ray and solemnly pronounced his best medical opinion: “your ankle is all whacked out.”
Hello (or Cheers) from London. I am here (and in other places in the UK and Ireland) for one month of my 6-month sabbatical. I am meeting with dementia experts to learn about their research into managing the behavioral symptoms of dementia. There are many parallels with our work at Michigan into finding ways to better integrate non-pharmacologic treatments and target medications for these symptoms. I suspect some exciting collaborations to come from these meetings.
There’s a lot of sweet (and rightfully so) on my Facebook feed today. Wonderful and lovely pictures of friends’ moms and friends’ kids. But this morning, I am feeling a bit “salty” (my favorite new coffee drink from the Songbird café here in Ann Arbor is rosemary sea salt latte—it sounds weird, but the sweet and salty flavor is wonderful and delicious). And to me, sweet and salty captures being a mom.
The other day my daughter Tasia was telling me about some things going on with friends in high school that were troubling her. I listened briefly and then immediately jumped into “problem-solving” mode. She stopped me short, “Mom, I don’t want you to solve this for me…I just want you to listen and nod your head.” I laughed and made some exaggerated head nods and she replied “Yes! Just keep doing that!”.
If I didn’t know my Thea (Aunt) Beth was real, I would think that some writer had made her up as “the favorite Aunt” character in a cozy novel. Warm, sweet, loving, full of hugs. Visit her condo in Florida (2 doors down from my folks’), you get a piece of chocolate, a deconstruction of the last Downton Abbey episode, and a lowdown on all the best spots to hit in the area for boutique shopping.
Remember the 1980’s Steve Martin/John Candy movie about a businessman trying to get somewhere? Kind of like what yesterday was like for the Kales/Gibson family. But before we get to that, let’s rewind to Thursday. That is when Tasia, my perfectionist, highly-organized, 16 year-old daughter entered the kitchen looking like the weight of the world was showing on her beautiful face.
Disclaimer: This post is NOT about the effects of orange juice on sleep. If you are looking for information on that particular topic, look elsewhere on the internet 😉
A year or so ago, I was at a professional conference held at a beautiful property in Georgia. By coincidence, my snowbird parents called me and told me that they would be driving through that very town on their way back to Michigan from Florida.
