Monday, September 28, 2009

Weddings : more fun than my last post

If you read about my older brother Mike in the last post, then you know that I am next in the pecking order. Following me is a brother, Steve, who is 5 years younger and my baby bro', Bruce, who is (ye' gods!) 10 years younger. OK, that being said, Steve and wife Patti's son Greg and fiancee Jamie (nee Cox) got married Sept. 19, 2009 in Euclid, Ohio. Our son Grant was in Milan (yes, Italy) on a business trip, but Bill and son Dave and I drove the 9 hrs. to my parents' home in Mentor, Ohio. My parents are now 85 and 87 but plan on staying in their home forever (as well as living forever - my mom anyway, and she may). But that is another story as the saying goes.

It was a wonderful wedding. I'm not being cliched here; OK, maybe I did chose alliteration. But, you decide. Filet mignon at a sit down dinner and a dessert table to knock your eyeballs out. Too bad I had already had them knocked out by the free-flowing spirits and didn't think to take a picture of it. Actually that's not true. It wasn't until the end of the wedding that I found out they had a price per person, and here I had been trying to take it easy on my brother with the cosmo's and wine. David may have put the Pine Ridge Country Club out of business on that front however. Maybe together we broke even along with Bill who was our designated driver.

But, back to the 4-day weekend. We drove up on Thursday afternoon, arriving just after 10:30 p.m. My parents are night owls so that time is not a problem. They also don't ever get up till after 10 a.m. On Friday my mom and I got our hair and nails done and we all even snuck in a trip to Malley's (for ice cream sundaes) after the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal was at a place called Cabanas, but I have no idea what 'burg we were in. Very fun. Always good to see the nieces and nephews. And hadn't seen Patti's 2 sisters in years. On Sunday, we drove home through at times torrential downpours and at other times just rain. Not so fun. They didn't let me drive, but they made me ride shotgun. I think that was because they wanted access to the car's DVD player in the back seat. I handled the torrential downpours and riding shotgun with a little clonazepan. If you don't know what that is, you are blessed not to have an overactive fight-or-flight response. Seriously, back in the tribe, I would have been put on sentry watch for the tiger.

As I said, weddings are so much more fun than funerals. They are additions rather than subtractions. I always cry at weddings of family and sometimes relative strangers as well. But printed inside the program of this wedding was the following:

The candle on the alter burns for the loved ones we have lost. They are forever in our hearts and always in our thoughts. We miss and love them all.

There were 3 families (or more?) that had suffered significant loss at this wedding. But, one father, who will be 90 in Nov. (and lost his son who was in his 20's or 30's at the time) got out on the dance floor and jitterbugged with his wife like he was 40. Now that looked like a blessing to me!

Pictures: Big Dave (my dad) and Little Dave (my son); Patti and Steve; Greg and Jamie; flowers our table (I love to look at flowers and I would love to have lots in my yard if I had a gardener!)

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

And so I move to the head of the class . . . Good-bye to Officer Wilson.

Pictured at right : Sean, Nina, Mike
  • And so the summer from hell ends. Bill and I flew out to Palm Springs on July 11 and back home on August 10. Michael died of AML leukemia (and/or pneumonia) on July 27. I was both privileged and devastated to be there and to have spent 2 weeks living in the City of Hope Hospital and taking care of Mike for those 2 weeks. Nurses may have changed the drip bags full of chemicals to stream uselessly through his body and to painfully turn his body so that he wouldn't get bed sores, but we fed him, sang to him, and held his hand.
  • And, oh, we thought he would live. We thought he was getting the "super chemo" that would get his blasts back to the point where he could get a stem cell replacement. I don't think I even knew that this might not work, just that the super chemo might kill him, not that it might not kill the blasts. But, it evidently did nothing, and in a very short time we were telling his brothers and parents that if they were coming, they better hurry, which they did, arriving first-class from Cleveland in 2 days.
  • I just wish we could have had a few years post retirement to have had a little fun together - the 4 of us. It is what we had planned. And, oh, I could write so much more, but I am still a little angry and depressed over the whole thing - I even called it the City of Hopeless yesterday because there's a part of me that thinks they could have tried harder or did something differently. I haven't looked up the stages of grieving yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm not through them yet. There is just an innate sense that we all ought to get to play by the same rules in life. It is so hard to accept the whims of the world. But I will make my peace with it (if it kills me)!
  • I'll just say as a tribute to Michael that, while he had his faults, he was always my big brother, born just 2 yrs. and 3 mo. before me. I followed him around as a small child and I followed him off to Ohio State when my close friends were going to Ohio U. He was in retailing for years but then found his true calling in becoming first in graduating from his police academy class when he was 44. Thank you "no age discrimination" in California. He had 2 squad car partners that were straight guys who still loved Mike and he them and who called him at the hospital and wanted to come down and see him. But he wouldn't let anyone see him while sick. And he had already had to retire early from having kidney cancer in 2001, so he knew what it was to be sick and then in chronic pain from that operation. So, his skills as an authority figure and his intelligence made him an outstanding officer and a great big brother. He was my earpiece always.
  • No, I don't think I want to step to the head of the class. The shoes are too big to fill.

Meet the parents: Martha and David

Meet the parents:  Martha and David
Aren't they cute?

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Christmas 2007

Christmas 2007
In Atlanta with the Pfaff's

Bill and I had a wonderful time with Dave and Erin at Erin's parents, Roger and Muriel Pfaff, in Marietta, GA. We drove down on Sunday and spent 2 nights at a Drury Inns & Suites, but ate all our meals (except the free breakfast at the motel) with the Pfaff's. Erin has one sister, Alison, and her boyfriend, Mike, were also in attendance. Mike is a med student at MCV, where Bill's brother Jim went (a few year's ago!).

We got hooked on dominoes, which we played when we weren't eating one of Murierl's wonderful meals. Of course, when we played we ate homemade cookies and candy, made by Erin and her mom. Dinner Sunday night was a wonderful chicken dish over pasta; Christmas Eve was 2 kinds of hearty homemade soups and homemade rolls; and Christmas dinner was prime rib. Wow! Were we impressed. Best thing to me: sticky pecan rolls at Christmas breakfast. Super yum.

On Christmas Eve we went to a candlelight service at 11:00 p.m. at the Pfaff's Lutheran church. It felt very similar to our Methodist candlelight service. I think the big Christmas present was something called a Wee, an interactive games thingy played on your TV. Like all playstation things, it's beyond me.


March 2008 Snowfall

March 2008 Snowfall
Our only snow this year which was with us for one evening and the following half day.


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Bill

Bill
Bridgestone Racing Academy



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Favorite Quotes

Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life . . . Picasso

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind . . . . . . . Dr. Seuss

The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away . . . Robert M. Pirsig "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret . . . Henri-Fredric Amiel

What worries you, masters you . . . . Haddon W. Robinson

When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience , so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape . . . Louise Erdrich in The Plague of Doves

Queen Lucy . . . RIP

Queen Lucy . . .                  RIP
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too. ~Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912

Princess Gracie . . . RIP

Princess Gracie . . .  RIP
black dogs aren't as photogenic

The girls

The girls

Sharing VandysView

Sharing VandysView
Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Lucky

Lucky
Dave and Erin's lucky stray that walked into their front yard and got adopted - he's a very joyful dog

Magi when she was a puppy

Magi when she was a puppy
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. ~Ben Williams

Family

Family
The VandeWater boys - Bob, Bill and Jim

Bob Bill and Dr. Jim

Bill's mom Ann (DeLanghe) VandeWater

Bill's mom Ann (DeLanghe) VandeWater
birthdate: 6/3/1915

Jim and Bev

Jim and Bev
Bill's brother

The Women in my Life

The Women in my Life
Mom, Patti, and Cheryl

Dad's 83rd birthday

Dad's 83rd birthday
Our Christmas baby

Where is that other brother?

Where is that other brother?
Nina, Mike, my handsome older brother, and Bruce, my handsome youngest brother

There he is!

There he is!
Patti and Steve, my handsome younger brother

Sean and Mike - Lake Tahoe

Sean and Mike - Lake Tahoe

My nephew and his girlfriend

My nephew and his girlfriend
They're cute too

The whole Motley Crue

The whole Motley Crue
Aren't we cute?