Holding it All

 

     I hate to be the one imparting cliche wisdom here- but here goes. This weekend as I spent the three days up in the mountains with some really good friends I was struck by the multiple perspectives that one can have.

     I was celebrating getting out of my Darth Vader boot (after foot surgery) and the freedom that entailed. My foot was freed from bondage and therefore I was also walking quite a bit more with less discomfort. At the same time, on my mind were both my cousin's serious illnesses. Both women, around my age are fighting for their lives with terminal illnesses. I love them both, but living far away, and not being ringside, has left me feeling a bit hopeless. 

   And to add to the mix is my sister. She is a career alcoholic who is also dying. Her body, and her organs are beginning to fail. This year she has had four emergency hospitalizations and surgeries for complications due to her drinking. Each time they patch her up, release her, and she returns right back to the cycle.

    And so I sat on our deck early Sunday morning surrounded by the quiet murmur of pine trees nestling. I heard someone else faintly in the kitchen making coffee. I smiled at the voices I heard wafting through the screen door of our cabin. but not quite making them out. I can't help but be grateful for all the great conversations I have had or listened to this weekend.  These were just spontaneous conversations about the world, politics or any other random topic.  For a second I thought about all the good food, laughter, love and even the board games that were all shared this weekend.

     And so I hold it all. I struggled slighly to get up. I stepped very carefully back into cabin. I wanted to hear what they are saying.

    

Empathy

Whenever I walk by my uncle's picture in the dining room I feel a tinge of sadness. I could be setting the table, putting something away, and I will look up and see him I think of all he went through, and how hard he fought to be well.

       My grandparents lived in Durham North Carolina and were both doctors. There son, Stephen was diagnosed with epilepsy in the 1930's. They thought he would grow out of it in adolescence and for a time they thought he had.  During this time, the medical world knew very little about epilepsy and they over medicated.  My uncle was on several heavy duty meds before they settle on Thorazine. Thorazine stopped his seizures and everything else apparently. My father always said he could tell when my uncle was on his meds as it was like his brother was in a trance. 

       Of course, my father wasn't quite so eloquent. He actually said my Uncle Stephen was like a zombie.

        Initially, he managed to pursue quite an education. He went to Duke and got his Bachelors degree, and then his Masters, and he headed off to get his doctorate at Stanford University before suffering from a mental breakdown. He refused to take his meds because he couldn't focus on his studies.

   He tried to hurt himself.

   His parents came out on a train to collect him.

   He spent the rest of his life with his parents working odd jobs at Goodwill. Sometimes, institutionalized for psychotic episodes and once for being violent with my grandfather.

     My siblings and I were scared of him when we did see him. We saw him maybe a handful of times. He was always overly medicated, his hands shook from Thorazine, and it seemed like his fingers were dipped in yellow. ( This was from the nicotine as he chain smoked.) We were scared of him as kids as we knew something wasn't quite right.

  When I was a kid, and later an adult, I  sort of thought our Uncle Stephen was our very own Boo Radley.

    I think of him today and how far modern medicine has come in terms of effectively treating epilepsy. I  think of how epilepsy it is no longer a life sentence and that many who suffer from epilepsy can lead pretty normal functioning lives.

   But most of all, I just think of him.

Monetary Mysteries

    You know I gotta confess my Dad told me A LOT of stuff. I mean, A LOT. (This could be material for many slices) but writing on the back of snapshots, or identifying photos with subject, and dates seemed to blow right by me.

     Yet I thought of him yesterday and had to chuckle to myself ruefully. I was going over my uncle's coin collection with coolest app on my phone in complete amazement. It was so much fun, so easy, as the app scanned each coin with my camera, recognized, and gave its' value. 

   My uncle had kept a coin collection in the 1930's and when we were cleaning out my grandparent's home, and my uncle had also passed, no one in the family wanted it. 

   I grabbed it.

   It's not exactly unmarked photographs but there were some mysteries surrounding some of the coins.

   There were so many foreign coins from the late 1800's. The foreign coins from the 1940's were easy to explain; my father had brought those home during the war.

   It left me to ponder. Had my grandfather's colleagues, or patients brought him coins from their travels abroad? My grandfather was a doctor and surgeon for 35 years at a very large hospital in Durham, North Carolina. How had my Uncle Stephen come by these older European coins? My Uncle Stephen's own life was fraught with battles with mental illness. 

   I couldn't help but just wonder as to the stories as to how he might have came by an Indian Rupee from 1841, or even a Japanese Yen from 1870?

   Even as I put the Whitman's Sampler box away carefully my curiosity was abound. I traced his scrawly handwriting on the cover absentmindedly with my finger. I also hoped Uncle Stephen didn't mind that it was me who had "touched" his box- despite his strict directions not to.