Category Archives: Ruminations on Life

Thoughts on why we are Alive and the Inevitable

Memorial Day

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A short post to acknowledge all who died in service to our country. God Bless. Not a holiday to say “happy”, but a day to remember those who protected us. They gave their lives so we could live ours in peace.

Red Ass, B24 Liberator

I especially want to thank my father, Jesse Dale Davis who served honorably in WWII as a gunner aboard B-24 Liberator bombers, especially The Red Ass that led the entire 8th Air Force from England to Normandy, France on the D-Day invasion. He was wounded during his twenty-eight bombing raids across Germany, and occupied France, and Holland. He recovered from the physical wounds. The emotional scars remained for his entire life. He provided a comfortable life for his family until his death at age 52. He covered the trauma left in his psyche with wit and humor and never talked about his wartime experiences. Thank you, Dad. I miss you daily and wish we could have talked about your war experiences.

I also want to remember and honor contemporaries who gave their lives in Vietnam – their destiny cut short. They served our country with an innocence of belief in what our leaders said was important. Both were barely 21.

Paul Michael Gregovich DOB: 6/16/46. He died on July 15, 1967, in Vietnam Quang Tin province.

Dennis Quentin Zambano DOB: 10/14/46. He died on October 15, 1967, in South Vietnam Bing Dinh Province.

And to the thousands of others who we don’t call by name, Thank You for your sacrifice.

My Secret Life

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Standing on the brink of eighty, I have so much past and a diminished amount of future. I must keep reminding myself of that because I don’t feel a day over thirty-five, and my tomorrows still seem endless. I’m listening to friends and colleagues about all they are doing to prepare for their inevitable end. Things like clearing out closets and storage so their heirs are not overwhelmed with the detritus of their lives.


That’s a good idea even if you are not anticipating the Grim Reaper. It cleanses the mind to get rid of stuff instead of stuffing it in nooks and crannies. The same can be said of ideas and memories. They can be aired out, shared with the world, or discarded entirely.


I have so many wonderful remembrances to look back on, I don’t dwell on woes. Among my very happiest memories, besides my relationships, are my stories. I have written countless stories, character sketches, and poems over the years. Only in the last twenty years have I shared any of them. I wrote for myself. As a matter of fact, no one in my family even knew I was a writer. Of course, I didn’t call myself a writer then because to me that was an exalted status far above my humble reach. You know Hemingway, Huxley, du Maurier, Woolf, Rowling, Fitzgerald, Austin, Dickens, and so many more I admire. When I took my first writing class, I was told that if I write, even in secret, I AM a writer. Hallelujah! Now I can say it out loud.


When we moved from the Pacific Northwest to Southern Arizona, I tossed out volumes of diaries, journals, and notebooks of my writing. I figured I’d never have any reason to revisit them. It was my secret life. By chance, some were overlooked, so I have dribs and drabs of my early reflections on life, including my senior year of high school. I would love to look through all those old notebooks again to see how my perspective may have changed.


I started blogging as a marketing tool for a book I co-authored three years ago. It was fun. I was hooked. I started asking my husband to read stories I write for my critique group and blog. He was surprised that I wrote. Fortunately, he likes my writing. At least he says he does. He is not a literary critic, only a reader. He has never liked reading books, so my short essays or reminiscences are just the ticket. Longer projects I have written require an editorial type of review. For now, I’m enjoying the interaction I receive from readers at the Oro Valley Writers’ Forum, my critique group, and my online blog.


I encourage EVERYONE who likes to put pen to paper or tap away on a computer to consider themselves A WRITER. Find a writers’ group that agrees to read and critique your stories. It is a way of strengthening your skills and receiving feedback for your ideas. Writer groups are formed in writing classes given through Pima or the U. of A. The Oro Valley Writers’ Forum at the Oro Valley Library is another place to meet writers and share ideas. It is never too late to share your perspectives with the world. Everyone has a story. Every day is a story. Don’t live in a secret world. Clear out your closet of ideas and reveal your insights through fiction stories, non-fiction, memoir, or poetry. Your voice is an important thread in the fabric of humanity. We have so much more in common than in opposition.

I apologize to anyone who was misled by the title of this piece, thinking there might be some delicious salacious tidbits in the offing. Eighty years have been filled with a myriad of highs and lows, disappointments, and missteps. My deepest, darkest secrets are still locked away in my journals. Some are delicious in retrospect. They may see the light of day at some point.

Part 4 of Our Seattle Tour – SeaFair and Skipping School

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Today is one of those not-quite-sunny-but-definitely-not-raining days, so we’ll go to another part of Seattle where I once worked, Leschi. It is on the east border of Seattle along Lake Washington, just north of the Lacey V. Morrow floating bridge (the second longest floating bridge in the world, next to the other Lake Washington Evergreen Point Bridge further north on the Lake, which is the longest in the world). Lake Washington is a navigable body of water about 22 miles long. It is deep enough for ocean-going vessels to enter its ports through the canal, then down to the south end. Across Lake Washington, further east of Seattle, are Bellevue and Medina, where my family lived.

Leschi is a mix of beautiful homes, from craftsman bungalows built in the early 1900s to stately Tudors and contemporary homes built later. It was originally a place for summer cottages, but now it is an enclave for multi-million-dollar lakefront properties. I remember the day when, in one of those million-dollar waterfront mansions at Leschi, Kurt Cobain shot himself in the head, leaving Nirvana headless. Sorry, bad joke.

In the late 80s, I worked for two companies at 120 Lakeside Avenue in Leschi. Both were headed by multi-millionaires. First, I worked for a venture capitalist S.S. Besides being a successful entrepreneur, he was a philanthropist. He owned a mall in north Seattle and a prominent grocery chain, which became part of Kroger. He donated to various charities and supported an inner-city elementary school with a $1 million per year endowment. There were only five of us in the office. I was hired as a secretary/receptionist with general office duties. He didn’t have much work that challenged me, and I had time on my hands. It was while working in his office that I taught myself computer skills – back in the day of DOS.

One story about S.S. that I remember was when my husband and I decided to purchase a boat. I told S.S. we were looking around for a modest sailboat. He owned a sailboat, did a lot of cruising, and had some good advice. One piece of advice though, depicts the difference between his place in the world and ours. Speaking very earnestly, he told me to be sure the sailboat had a washer and dryer onboard so that when we were out cruising for weeks, we could have clean clothes. I know my mouth gaped when he said it, but I recovered and thanked him for his advice. His idea of a sailboat was more YACHT than boat. On neither of the boats we eventually owned was there room, let alone hookups, for a washer and dryer. Nor did we cruise for more than ten days at a time. Oh well, a girl can dream.

Later, I went to work for his friend T.L., who, with his partner D.S., managed the upscale commercial building of offices, retail, a marina, and gas dock on the shore of the lake. S.S. bragged to T.L. about my computer skills, and T.L. was just beginning to get savvy about computers for his company. He offered me a job with challenge and a better salary, so I left S.S. We all remained friendly. T.L.’s offices were downstairs from S.S. Cabin cruisers, yachts, fishing boats, kayaks, commercial hauling boats, ski boats, and sailboats paraded past the lakeside windows of my office daily. I managed and leased office space and kept books for the dock facilities. I also set up their computerized accounting system. Those who know me will laugh. I am terrible with numbers, but I do understand computerized systems. Well, I did then when they were less complicated than today.

Let’s have lunch at BluWater; it used to be the Leschi Café when I worked there. They had the very best clam chowder in town. Well, maybe second best next to Duke’s. It’s a nice enough day so we can sit on the patio with a jacket on, watch the boats, and look across the lake to the city of Bellevue, connected to Seattle by the floating bridge. Until the 1940s, the only way to get across Lake Washington was by ferry boat. You can now zip across quickly in your powerboat or go across one of two bridges.

Our son and his friend Mike sometimes skipped a class in high school on a nice day and drove Mike’s speedboat across the lake to my office. I treated them to lunch at the pizza restaurant downstairs in our building before they went back to school. I was not a terribly strict mother. I’ve always felt that experience trumps classroom learning. I occasionally practiced the art of experiential learning as a high school student.

Big Ships at dock during Fleet Week

The last week of July is the celebration of SeaFair, with SeaFair royalty and pirates in the torchlight parade, boat parades on Lake Washington, Navy Blue Angels exhibitions, Boeing airshows, Fleet Week in Elliott Bay with tours of big naval ships, and all manner of hilarity. The size of those naval ships is astonishing. Both of my mother’s brothers were in the Navy during WWII. My Uncle Johnny described his harrowing experience in the Battle of Leyte Gulf and recommended a book, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. It is about a different naval battle, but he said it brings the feelings to life. In his later years, he talked about it rather matter-of-factly, but I sensed the emotions it brought back.

Hydroplane races on Lake Washington during SeaFair

One of the most exciting things I remember about SeaFair is the hydroplane races. Flat-bottom boats with powerful airplane engines race each other around a course reaching 200+ mph, lifting off the water. It is thrilling to watch their explosive water fantails shoot high in the warm August air. Just as in car races, their roar is so loud you remain deafened for a few hours afterward. SeaFair was a highlight of my youthful summers, I think, because it was usually such a nice weather week with so many diversions.

To continue our Seattle tour, we’ll drive up and over First Hill, one of the original seven hills of Seattle, which we called “pill hill” because of three big hospitals located there. Now we’re in the Central area, the most ethnically diverse neighborhood. It started as a Jewish settlement and is still the home of Temple de Hirsch Sinai, the largest Jewish congregation in Washington. Rabbi Raphael Levine was the leader of that congregation when I lived in Seattle and he was a towering presence throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s, fighting for civil rights and brotherhood. A Buddhist Church is nearby as well as a Japanese Congregational Church. The Central area had the highest population of blacks in Seattle. The Central area was the childhood home of Jimi Hendrix, Dave Lewis, Quincy Jones, and Bruce Lee, and a staging area for the Black Panther movement in the 60s.

I remember the Central area most because that is where I often went when I skipped school in my senior year. One of the high schools in the area is Garfield. Garfield’s basketball, track, and football teams made the championships every year in the 50s and 60s. In 1963, they had a jukebox in their lunchroom. One of my friends, Kelly, had a car, and her boyfriend, John, was a basketball player on the Garfield team. Kelly and I would leave our school in Bellevue at about 11:30 in the morning and drive across the lake to Garfield to dance to the music and eat our lunch with John and his friends. We got back to our school in time for last period and went home at the proper time. We had friends in the attendance office who made sure we were marked present officially during that time. Can’t get away with that these days.

One time, Kelly and I were walking the halls of Garfield on our way to the lunchroom when a phalanx of large – think football player – young black men with their arms across each other’s shoulders blocked the hall, wall to wall. They wore serious eye-squinting faces as they marched toward us. There was no escape except to go through them. We did. We ducked under their arms. They broke out in laughter. Hearts pounding, we were relieved it was a prank, not a threat.

My French teacher was suspicious and called my house one day when I missed her class one time too many. Usually, that was no big deal because both of my parents worked, so she would not have reached anyone. This was in ancient days before cell phones and message machines. Just my luck, my father was home sick that day, and she told him I missed French class several times in a few weeks. When I got home at the regular time, my father greeted me at the door.

“Where were you all day?” he asked.
“School,” I said with total truthfulness, I left out that I had been in two different schools.
“Miss D called to say you were not in class today and had been absent several times.”
At that point, I was speechless. I thought I had everything pretty well covered.
“I’ll ask again. Where were you?”
“I was at school,” I insisted, but then admitted, “At lunchtime, Kelly and I went to Garfield to see John. When we got back, it was too late to go to French, but I did get to my last class.”
“Don’t do it again,” he admonished, but I could see he was stifling a grin, knowing that was an empty directive. “I told her you came home and weren’t feeling well. She’s watching you.” Then, as an aside, “And don’t let your mother know, you know how she is.” Dad always had my back.


That was the end of the conversation and the end of the episode. Miss D didn’t give up trying to catch me, and I strived to get back in time for her class when we skipped for lunch. I got a B in French (a class I really liked). In retrospect, I think Miss D was one of the teachers who actually cared about my future. She tried her best to give me advice, even keeping me after class to explain how I was cheating myself and that I had so much potential. I blew it off, but I remember her now as a mentor, a failed mentor, but not from lack of trying. It was not the end of my “experiential learning”. My mother never learned about my truancy until I told her years later, after my dad died, that he had been a co-conspirator in my escapades. Her remark was, “That sounds like your dad.”

I graduated with a respectable B average and was accepted to Washington State University for the fall. I liked school and classes, but I enjoyed being a little rebellious, too. I do not think I learned a lesson or reaped the consequences for my misdeeds. Although my college career was short-lived, it was a fun year. That is another story entirely.

On our next tour, we will visit Discovery Park in Magnolia, Elliott Bay, and Queen Anne. I will tell you a little about living on our sailboat.

Death Nudged Me Today

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To Gerry 5/4/45 to 4/10/19

This poem was written six years ago after the death of a dear childhood friend. Years accumulated without contact between us. In her final months, she reached out to me, a tender reminder of the bond we formed over sixty years before as twelve-year-old girls. Our families both relocated to Bellevue, Washington the summer before our 7th grade year at school; hers from Oregon, mine from Kansas. We were the newbies so naturally clung to each other as we learned how to navigate a new school and integrate into a new community of teens. She will always be a happy memory. Today is her birthday – Happy Birthday, Gerry.

Death nudged me today.

Just to say, Remember

I will be your escort one day.

She was a friend of childhood,

A bosom buddy in a mutable time.

We were close, two coats of paint.

Teen dances at the gym

Girlhood angst

Secrets whispered and shared

A rambunctious orb of energy

Her infectious laugh

Reached the corners of my preteen world

She, the adventurer

I, the eager sidekick

Exploring adolescence together

A blueberry summer, picking for money

Her buckets overflowed, mine barely topped

She reaped a summer salary, I lasted two days

Blessed with natural athleticism,

She excelled in gymnastic maneuvers.

My feet refused to leave the ground.

An enthusiastic cheerleader, she leaped

My leaps fell short, I tried

My place in the bleachers assured

By high school, our paths diverged

Friendship, a shadow

Not gone, just faded

Our last summer together after school

She led the way, I followed

Clerks at an insurance agency

She married, I married

She had a baby, I had a baby

Then two, and one extra for me

Ambitious and motivated

She had her own business.

I focused on three children.

Our contact was sparse

Never completely closing the gap

To reclaim friendship

She moved, I moved

She divorced, I didn’t

The contours of our lives unaligned

She moved to the desert, Las Vegas

I moved to the desert, Tucson

No contact for decades.

She reached out

A year ago, email

Stage 4 cancer was the verdict.

I sent prayers, encouragement,

Cards and emails for months.

She died.

The phantom of our friendship

Rests in my heart.

I see her smile, her laugh an echo.

It will be my turn someday

To dance with death.

Again, she led the way.

Seattle

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Recently, I visited Seattle, where I have not lived for over 28 years. It was a short, impromptu visit to see our daughter. The weather was atrocious, but the company was great. She and I had a nice long time to share memories and reconnect. However, I was reminded of the reason Ken and I fled to southern Arizona.

This essay, which I will publish in several parts, is based on memory and journal notes from the years when I lived there and shortly thereafter. The Seattle we left is not the same as the present-day city. None of the reports from people who live there are especially favorable about the conditions in the city, relating stories of homelessness and crime. I witnessed a few of the changes in the days I was there. Traffic is abominable – a moving parking lot, very like LA. I have no desire to return. I’d rather live with lovely memories of what was.

SEATTLE

I want to tell you about a city I hated, but grudgingly learned to appreciate. I was a captive for nearly 40 years under gray, drizzly skies, wrapped in its suffocating blanket of onshore flow and tedious droplet-laden air. How does one breathe when the air is saturated with water? Seattle has an enormous diversity of smells, sights, and textures, but the overriding constant is wet, moldy dampness. During the day, the vibration of color is muted because of the lack of light, sunshine. Color doesn’t exist without light. Everything is enveloped in dimness. When you look up, you see a dull white sky. Haze covers the bright orb we were told was the sun. A clear blue sky is rare. Seattle has one of the highest rates of suicide in the US. I can certainly understand why. It has the distinction of being the US city with the highest sales of sunglasses. You use them on a sunny day, then by the time another sunny day arrives, the sunglasses have been lost or seriously misplaced, and you must buy another pair. Mine were found once in the freezer…but that’s another story.

Contrary to common thought, it doesn’t really rain in Seattle; it fatally mists you. It would be a welcome change if rain actually fell, fat full drops in quantities of a tipped-over horse trough. But no, gloomy clouds hang low overhead, spritzing gauzy water day and night. The average rainfall in Seattle is less than in Little Rock, Arkansas, Atlanta, Georgia, Lexington, Kentucky, or New York City. In those places, rain falls with intent – the intent to make things wet. In Seattle, you can walk around all day in the vaporous fog and never have a single drop of rain slide down your face, but you are damp nonetheless from the outside to the bone. You can walk between raindrops in Seattle and be saturated by the artifice of rain.

My father accepted a transfer with Boeing to Seattle in 1957. I was ripped from the wide open sunny plains of my Kansas home as a child of eleven and whisked off to the Pacific Northwest, boxed in by low clouds and lofty, dark, sentry-like evergreens. You cannot see many vistas or horizons in Seattle because of those damn giant black-green trees. I became a victim of Stockholm syndrome. I learned to identify with and, grudgingly, admire the city that was my captor.

Now that I am liberated from its bondage, I visit the city with an entirely different attitude. I appreciate its energy, its diverse population, and its distinct neighborhoods. I still do not admire the weather. There are approximately five sunny days sometime between late July and late August, and then another five in February. On those rare days, the city is stunningly beautiful – a dazzling jewel nestled at the base of the snowcapped Cascade Mountains between Lake Washington on the east and the cerulean sparkle of Puget Sound to the west. On clear days, you can see Mount Baker to the North, and Mount Rainier looms up over the city to the South.

Let me take you on a virtual tour of my Seattle, some of the places that have meaning and memory for me.

Our tour begins. It is a liquid, dark September night, and light from building signs reflects on the drenched black asphalt of Pine Street. The street shimmers with smears of circus colors like a Monet painting in front of the Inn at the Market, where I stay when visiting, and Sur La Table next door. Pine Street slides with a 9% grade downhill west. From the front of the hotel, you see over the top of the Pike Place Market at the end of the block to the waterfront and Puget Sound beyond. We are on the western edge of downtown Seattle proper.

Jazz music flows from The Pink Door in Post Alley, playing deep into this night. The Alley, just above the Market, is where the Market Theater and the gum wall are. The gum wall is a brick wall of chewed gum in a variety of colors, grape, cherry, lime, and plain gray spearmint, originally created by people who stood in line to go to the theater. Years of ordinance after ordinance failed to keep that wall clean. It became a bizarre tourist attraction that turned up in the movie “Love Happens”.

You can’t talk about Seattle without mentioning Starbucks. Starbucks started here near Pike Place Market in the 1970s. Now, it’s an international megalith for coffee worshipers. The Starbucks at Pike Place still has the original logo with the bare-breasted Norse maiden in the middle of the medallion. I’m generally a tea person. A nice cup of double-strength Irish Breakfast Coffee is my morning wakeup. I prefer Seattle’s Best for coffee because it doesn’t seem as bitter. Coffee, anyone?

Seattle is a city of frenzied days fueled by Starbucks (one on every corner with kiosks mid-block), people traveling up and down endless rain-slicked hills, and long nights lubricated by microbreweries like Pike Brewing Company and Elliot Bay Brewery, and lots of good music. We’ll stop by Kell’s Irish Pub for a short one and then turn in. The tour will continue tomorrow.

Good morning, we’ll start our tour here near the famous Pike Place Market where “flying fish” are sold. I’m sure you have all seen this well-known marketplace on TV or the internet. The owner and staff of the Pike Place Fish Market made a video of their shop and developed a motivational training program for employees who work with the public based on the Fish Philosophy of “Play, Be There, Choose your Attitude and Make Their Day”. The fish sellers have great fun with shoppers at the Market, throwing whole fish back and forth to each other like footballs over the heads of wary customers, using rhyme and signals to let each other know a fish is coming their way. An unsuspecting patron often nearly gets hit by a fish thrown in his direction, but caught at the last possible second by one of the fishmongers. A massive slippery open-mouthed monkfish lures you close and then jumps at you. Pike Place Market is a destination for most Seattle tourists. The high-jinks are worth the trip.

If you have the time, enjoy this six-minute video of the Fish Philosophy.

Pike Place Market exudes tantalizing aromas of newly picked farm produce, the woody, musky tang of incense, and the sweet bouquet of flowers, plus the salty ocean smell of fresh fish.

My favorite shop in the Market is Tenzing MoMo. An intense potpourri of frankincense, myrrh, ylang-ylang, patchouli, and sandalwood beckons you into the dark, magical, Asian inspired apothecary. They deal in herbs, tarot cards, chai tea, brass bells, ear candles, essential oils, and all manner of other necessities. It is deep in the belly of the Market which is built on a cliff plunging three stories down from the street. The top floor, at street level on the east side, looks westward across Elliot Bay toward Puget Sound. My favorite restaurant at the top level is a French bistro, Maximilien’s, with a terrace that allows a 180-degree view of the Sound. I cannot resist the Croque Monsieur.

Pike Place Market was created in the first decade of the 1900s as a fresh produce co-op market for local farmers. It retains that promise but has expanded to include buskers, homemade baked goods, handmade clothing and jewelry, antique dealers, restaurants, comic-book vendors, and crafts – something for everyone. The Market also houses a senior center, a childcare center, a medical clinic serving the working poor, elderly, and HIV-positive patients, and has HUD-subsidized housing for about 500 people. Rachel, a big brass pig, nearly three feet tall, greets visitors at the front of the Market. Her snout is rubbed for luck. She is a giant piggy bank that collects coins for charities supported by the Market.

In the early 80s, I worked six blocks from the Market up the insanely steep hill on Pine Street at the Bon Marché Department Store in their construction department. Often on my lunch hour, I negotiated the incredible downhill to the Market, roaming the nine acres of vendor stalls for something delish for lunch. My family was treated to the farm-fresh produce for dinner. Then I trudged up the hill with my treasures, back to work – my exercise for the day.

Next time, I will take you through a little history of Seattle, a smidge of the underground tour, and The Seattle Toilet History (a remarkable story).

Happiness or Gratitude?

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I recently encountered an individual who said they were in pursuit of happiness. They had experienced some setbacks in life and were feeling low and had been counseled to make happiness a priority.


I posited, on the contrary, the pursuit of happiness is a hollow pursuit. Happiness is a feeling, a mood. Happiness is insubstantial, subjective. It comes and goes. It is transitory.


Gratitude, on the other hand, is concrete. With an attitude of gratitude, you cannot help but be happy. You look around you to sense the beauty of nature or reflect on the objects in your home that you bought or have been gifted, and remember the why, when, and who of each object. Remember the happiness that each object brought when it was newly purchased or received. Gratitude for friendship. Gratitude for family. Gratitude for the people who serve us in our daily activities, from the grocery store to medical professionals to our military and law enforcement, who keep us safe.


You can use your God-given senses to appreciate and be grateful for – the spring smell of blossoms or the scent of your lover’s warm skin; the taste of chocolate or the first cup of coffee in the morning; the softness of a kitten’s fur or the feel of an embrace; the sound of birds calling or a favorite song that makes you want to sing; a wonderous sunset in a desert sky or glistening raindrops that inch down a window pane. Gratitude for being alive in this tangible world is what actual happiness is. Beyond this world, the spiritual realm conveys meaning to life. The comfort of God or whatever spiritual practice you observe is a specific conduit to happiness.


I think of my friend Diane, who told me one day many years ago that she was diagnosed with ALS, a death sentence. Not just a death sentence, but a torturous journey through advancing body paralysis. The prospect she looked toward was months, possibly a couple of years of her body slowly becoming frozen while her mind remained alert. That sounds like torture of the worst kind, being fully coherent as body parts are rendered useless, slowly dying piece by piece. Diane was the most vibrant, energetic person I knew. She could do anything.

She decided to master the grand piano at the age of 40, having never played piano before, and she did it. She set a goal in May of her first year of lessons to give a caroling party by Christmas, and she met that goal. She printed out the words of each carol for all the participants. Each year her playing became more powerful, proficient, and complex. We loved hearing her advancing abilities. Her friends coveted invitations to her Christmas caroling parties. Over the years, she became more skilled and her repertoire more sophisticated, so that she was invited to piano competitions across the country.

She made it a point to tell me that she was going to be happy until the end. She was going to be GRATEFUL for every day she had and for every little thing that she could do day by day. She was an amazing inspiration. She traveled with her family and went on cruises. She continued to practice the piano until she could no longer make her fingers do her bidding. She had parties at her house until she was incapable of managing it. She played golf until she couldn’t stand and walk. She kept in touch with friends until the only part of her body that moved was her eyes. She could only speak through a computer that she manipulated with her eyes. She was always grateful to have people around her and, to the end, said people were what meant the most to her. She created her happiness from her gratitude for every small thing.


I remember when I was sidelined by two broken ankles. I realized how much walking, moving myself from place to place, meant to me. Even though I had a scooter, it was not the same as the independence of standing and walking on my own. I was very jealous of people I saw walking past my house or on the street as Ken drove me around. Then and there, I promised myself that when my ankles healed, I would not only walk every day, but I would appreciate each step. Still today, I am so grateful to Dr. Ty for his surgical skill, his encouragement, and his humor as I recovered step by agonizing step to be fully functional again. I’m grateful for a body that healed so well. I’m grateful to Ken for his care and patience as I rehabbed. I am not a patient patient, so I’m sure my mood was not the best, but he persevered and encouraged me when I was exasperated.


Today I am grateful for Ken’s commitment to his own therapy. As a man with Parkinson’s Disorder, he works two or three hours, sometimes more, each day to stave off the impact of the mayhem being perpetrated on his body by his own brain. He is learning to overcome some of the effects by retraining his brain. Automatic functions like walking, speech, and swallowing are diminished day by day with this disorder. He must fight to consciously instruct each part of his body to do his bidding. He has to walk, each step with intent. He has to talk, each word with intent. Nothing is taken for granted because those abilities are slowly eroding. He is exhausted at the end of a short walk, not because of weak legs or feet but because his brain has to work so hard to create each movement. Talking wears him out because he has to force his voice to be at a level he can be heard. He must enunciate each word slowly in order to be clear. Parkinson’s robs him of volume and makes his words slur into a jumble of incoherence unless he articulates each one carefully. His throat muscles are compromised so coughing and choking are ever present. His physical therapy includes muscle rehab and balance training. There are days when I know the struggle is enormous. His attitude is “never give in”. He is rewarded by being able to do as much as any 80-year-old can do. He’s not 17 anymore, but still enjoys his life. For all the effort he makes,I am grateful.


Gratitude is an affirmation of life. Stay grateful and happiness will be the consequence.

what goodbye feels like

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Over 60 years in each other’s lives,

Surfing the waves of highs and lows.

Enduring tsunamis of emotion.

Living, loving, hating but never ignoring.

Always engaged

Now as we head to port,

The end almost in sight,

We navigated mainly with fair winds and following seas,

Occasionally full sails held close to the wind,

And the doldrums, only pauses that emphasized

The beauty of our voyage.

Memory is a quirky thing

Good ones leap to mind

Jumping fish at the end of eternity’s pole,

Bad ones huddle, snakes in a dark basket

Only stirred forward by prodding.

But why prod? It was done.

Done.

We are solid, a team

We smile at the same songs

We crack up at private jokes

We get teary over tiny gestures

We are grateful for each other’s company

Unnumbered days ahead, begin to feel numbered.

How many?

I’ve never been good at math.

Numbers have been known to lie.

I only know that the days are precious

Not endless as when we were seventeen

How did we last so long?

How did we come so far?

Together!

A mystery that needs no resolution.

Chronos has ushered us nearer to our ‘sell-by’ date

Health is now the prominent daily topic

Parkinsons has robbed you of prime vigor

I assume roles for which I didn’t audition

Mutual patience is our new superpower

The thought “will he be here next year?”

Now resonates in daily reckoning.

But the question, “will I?” comes less frequently.

How will I be me without you?

The tether is so strong.

I am only an actor in this play

Not the author

I am not privy

To the final scene

I will play it as it comes

With faith

I wrote this poem for Ken in celebration of his 80th birthday and over 61 years of being together.

Bumper Stickers for Life

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In December 2008, our grandson, Henry, was born. The light of our life, a joy, a gift. I wholeheartedly love my children and there is something so special about a grandchild. As he grew, I started writing little notes for him in one of my journals. In 2010 I consolidated a few of them in a document on my computer intending to continue collecting my “bumper stickers” as he grew and developed. I shared my thoughts with him along the way when events warranted a little grandmotherly advice. Now on the threshold of manhood and taller than his Grandpa, I decided it would be a good time to deliver these ideas in written form. I chose to write them all in a card/booklet for his 16th birthday. He loves cards – even more than gifts.

Things to know to grow to be an honorable man 

Advice to Henry Cooper (age 16 months), March 2010 

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well… To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Grandma says:

Pay attention to your Mother. Love her and honor her. She created her world around you. Respect the person she is, the place she made for you, and all she has shared with you. She loves you most.

Respect your Grandpa, love him, and learn from him; especially how to play baseball because he was a pro, you know, and golf because it is his passion, and he will love you even more if you can beat him at it.  Don’t follow too closely his advice on horseracing.  Remember Life Lessons from Grandpa. They will serve you well.

Love your Grandma, because she loves you with all her heart. Put your sweet arms around her and give her butterfly kisses whenever you see her – even after you have grown whiskers, for she will always remember the smooth cheeks of your babyhood. Read her a poem.

If indeed bad things happen and they will, my boy, remember that life is best lived going uphill, scrambling over the rocky humps because when you attain a summit you will have such a beautiful vista and so many great stories to tell, AND there is always another summit to reach for.

Laughter and humor are as essential as air. Laugh with your heart and your belly. Look for the fun in everything, even broccoli. 

Live with your heart open. Fall in love. You are meant to love and be loved. Be deeply, passionately, and lustfully in love. Love gives you the greatest highs.

Gratitude. Be thankful every day for the blessings you have. Don’t compare to anyone else. Be grateful to God and all who are in your life daily. 

Welcome God into your life every day. HE is the reason you are here, and HE will guide you to your best destiny.  Bathe in faith. Talk with God. Put HIM on speed dial. HE ALWAYS listens. HIS answers may be unexpected. HE sometimes says no… like when I ask to win the lottery.

Be of service daily. Even if only holding a door open for someone or offering a smile to someone who looks unhappy. There are so many, many ways to serve and it will add to your happiness as well as to the one you help. Service has a ripple effect.

Make choices with intention. Own your choices.  Inaction is also a choice and, if you don’t choose, you leave it for others to make decisions for your life and you might not like the results. Ask advice, consider options, and then choose your own path.

Listen, learn, and don’t follow the crowd if it is heading off a cliff. Listen to your gut.

Make music a part of each day. Music connects to your spirit, it heals, it moves you, it lifts you.

Never hate.  Hatred corrodes the container that holds it.

Make mistakes, fall down, skin your knees. Perfection doesn’t happen. You will learn best from failure how to be a success. Pain is inevitable and is a great teacher.  Your success is up to you. The harder you work, the stronger you become. The road of life is always under construction.

Hold Happy. Happiness is a choice. It comes from the inside not from anything outside.

Release Anger. Anger hurts you more than your intended target.

Practice Forgiveness. Forgiveness allows you to move on in life without the burden of hate and anger.

Confront fear. Take Chances. Fear and its brother Worry rob you of today, physically, mentally, and emotionally. With Fear and Worry you replace “What’s happening” in the present by borrowing “what might happen” from the future. STAY PRESENT.

Have Faith. Faith is knowing you can meet whatever comes your way with confidence because you have the internal resources to surmount adversity. At the very least you will gain wisdom from navigating through the experience. Overcome adversity and you will be stronger on the other side. YOU have the power.

Be a gentleman. A man’s manners are his portrait. Character is worth more than gold. Your style is your passport in human interaction. You are a male by birth, be a gentleman by choice.

Develop a will of iron and retain your soft heart.

Apologize when you are wrong.  Honor Truth.

Eschew jealousy. It is a poison that generates evil thoughts and deeds.

Don’t complain. Complaining makes you stuck. You are master of your life. Choose a positive attitude toward people and events and move on.

Live your highest dream. Don’t let fear detour you. You will conquer anything when you make it your goal.

Listen. Close your mouth, open your ears. You learn more when you listen.

Be Curious. Learning is a life-long process. Embrace it. Read, read, read. You will NEVER ever know everything. Learn to cook, build, sew – be self-sustaining. Curiosity is the root of all success.

Always put the toilet seat down!

Remember the ONLY constant is CHANGE

Write daily. It clears your thoughts and finds truths. You are the author of your life. Create your own story. Always use spell-check…but making up words is fun too.

Remember Elvis is King!

Be Present.  Life is abundance. Embrace it and you will want for nothing. Whatever you go through in life, there will always be another door you can open.

No drugs. Be responsible. Drive safely.

Don’t judge and don’t worry about others judging you. Be authentic. In a world full of trends, be a classic, be timeless.

Be Patient. But don’t make patience an excuse for inaction.

You are given only one body to take you through decades. Treat it with respect. Listen to what it tells you. Nourish it. Exercise it. Keep it in good order and it won’t let you down.

Boredom is the sign of a lazy mind. Color each day brightly. Your days are numbered, and you will never know what that number is.  Make them count.  Life is not a dress rehearsal, live it moment by moment. 

Don’t be a bystander. Life is an interactive game best played full throttle. Be uniquely you. 

Look for angels. They appear in many guises. They are everywhere and will help you when you are in need. Sometimes in surprising ways. 

Make friends and keep friends. True friends are the bulwarks that keep the waves of adversity from overwhelming your ship of life. Friends are the memories you will treasure when you are old and the source of great stories.

Find ways to be kind to someone every day. Simple kindness sends ripples of happiness from you to someone who sends it along to someone else, and on and on. Kindness is the true path to peace. 

Delivered to Henry Cooper on his 16th birthday: December 1, 2024 

Nine Eleven O’One

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I’m sure all Americans who were adults, even children on September 11, 2001 remember the horror of that September day. Ten days later I was on a plane from Tucson to Seattle and the images of buildings toppling and people throwing themselves into the air were fresh in my mind. Could it happen again? When? Where? How would it feel to be the sacrifice to that terror. This is the poem I wrote while on the plane to Seattle. On the twenty-third anniversary, I am wrapped in the emotions I felt that day.

Billowing palisades, pewter airfalls

            Cascade in slow motion

                        Overflowing the fountain of commerce

                                    Gracefull and grotesque

Soft tarnished silver clouds

Enfold futures lost

                        Spewing them

Into a bright Manhattan morning

Elegant plumes tumble gently one over another

            Carrying tattered remnants of lives

                        Ripping spirits from bodies

                                    Turning their shells to ash

Is there a torture more sublime

            Moment by moment terror

                        Smelling the hot acrid breath of death

                                    Approaching their prison in the sky?

Does hope flee quickly

            Or does it leak slowing

                        From the corners of their eyes

                                    As the dusk of life turns to night?

Written September 21, 2001 on a plane from Tucson to Seattle.

The Gift I Took for Granted

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Walking is prayer. Each day I try to walk for at least an hour and sometimes two hours. During that time I pray, meditate, listen to music or an audiobook. It is MY time to unload my stress, reload my gratitude, and fill my senses with God’s creations. I don’t use it to make plans for my day or my life. It is time for me to be present in each moment, not jump into the future or review the past.

Each walk starts with a prayer. I thank almighty God for giving me a healthy body and the ability to walk. I continue my thanks giving for all the blessings in my life, friends, family, and the beauty of the day. Once in a while one of the characters from a story I’m writing comes to take up space in my head as I amble along. I firmly let them know I’ll get back to them later after I get home but I try to remember what they tell me so I can write it down when I’m back at my desk.

I appreciate the gift of biped perambulating because five years ago I was couch-bound for over three months. I broke both of my ankles (one at a time prolonging recovery time – that’s another story about life lessons) and couldn’t do the simplest thing – walk. As a one-year-old, I learned, as most of us do, to move my body balancing from foot to foot, and took for granted that ability to move myself would always be with me. I was shocked when I couldn’t get up and walk. I used a scooter to get from place to place in the house, but I couldn’t WALK. I began noticing all the people who had walking limitations, using crutches, scooter, cane, staff, and walker. I developed great empathy for them. Until then I really didn’t notice them. I recognize now how hard it is to get oneself up, showered and dressed, and ready for the day when you cannot walk; what willpower it takes to get to the grocery store, to a job or do anything around the house.

I became very jealous of people who walked by or even worse jogged or ran by. Ken would take me for car rides to get me out of the house and I found rage bubble as I saw people walking. It struck me that unless I took myself in hand and made rehab my primary daily activity, I could possibly end up using a walker, cane or God forbid even a wheelchair for the rest of my life. Walking became an obsession.

I walked or jogged as a casual activity for decades never realizing what a gift it was. It was ho-hum, I guess I’ll go for a walk or go running at the track. I have strong legs and can walk miles without aches or pains. Not because of anything I’ve ever done, but because I am blessed with a sturdy body – hearty peasant stock.  I sometimes walked over seven miles around my town, to become familiar with neighborhoods. I hiked many trails around Tucson. Several times I hiked the nine-mile trail loop to the top of Wasson Peak in Saguaro National Park of the Tucson Mountains. I got winded by the 2,000-foot elevation change, but my legs never gave out. I’ve hiked various trails in the Catalina Mountains and the sandy trail at the bottom of Honey Bee Canyon.  I don’t know at what point my legs would get tired. I always feel I can do more, go farther. I haven’t explored my limits.

We built our house at the edge of Vistoso Golf Course so we would have open space behind us. The golf course owner went bankrupt and had to sell the property. Because of the town plan and zoning, it was hard to find a buyer for a defunct golf course. Without significant legal maneuvers, it couldn’t become housing. Finally, the Town of Oro Valley along with the Nature Conservancy group purchased the property as a Nature Preserve. Bonus! Not only would it remain open space but there would not be those annoying golf carts and maintenance vehicles roaming around our backyard.

The Preserve is 202 acres with 6.2 miles of concrete trails (former cart paths) and many more miles of dirt trails crisscrossing open spaces. If you stay on the concrete path it takes about two hours to walk the loop. The wonderful thing is you don’t have to stay on the path. You can walk across meadows and through tree-lined washes making your own track. Foot traffic through these open areas has created alternate routes over the past couple of years.

Ghost Saguaro

I am now so familiar with the Preserve that I’ve named each hill along the trail. For example, there is Castle Hill in the foothills of the Tortolita Mountains with a view of a castle-like rock formation. From this elevated part of the trail, you can see the Tucson Mountains to the west and the Catalina’s to the east.  Playground Hill passes the park in the CenterPoint neighborhood; Shady Wash Hill starts from a big shaded wash and climbs to a wide open field; Number Seven Hill where the seventh tee of the old golf course was and the marker remains. Meadow Hill climbs up to a big open meadow where I have seen coyotes romping through tall grass. There are among others, Ghost Saguaro Hill, and Petroglyph Hill. And on and on. I haven’t counted how many hills are on the trail, but I look forward to each one as I come to them on my rambles through the Preserve.    

I walk alone for at least an hour each day. My friend Roxanne walks with me for two hours on Saturday morning. I encounter many of the same people who live in the area and walk the trails daily as I do. We nod, smile, and say good morning, make short comments and observations on the day or the wildlife we see. There are couples, and dog walkers, but most are solitary as am I. A few ride bikes through the Preserve. I feel sorry for them because they whiz by all the beauty and natural wonders so quickly and miss observing the animals entirely. We dress in shorts or sweats depending on the season and t-shirts, and possibly a jacket in the winter, very casual since it is our neighborhood, home is nearby.

There is one group I come across almost every week. I call them the Imports. They are definitely not from the neighborhood. They wear backpacks and look like serious hikers. They have a leader who talks and points as they walk. I think they are part of an ecology group. They start in a close group, but I noticed, when I come across them later on the trail, that they become separated with stragglers sometimes fifty yards behind the leaders.

Wildlife is abundant. In other posts, I’ve listed all the animals that live in my neighborhood. Or rather I recognize that I live in their neighborhood. I’m grateful they haven’t gotten pissed off and left but instead stayed to share the area with us human invaders. Sometimes a deer or javelina will go by our backyard fence and look in at us sitting on the patio. It is as if they are taking a stroll through their environment, and we are the ones behind the bars of our fence like critters in a zoo. Although they are wild things they do not threaten or challenge us. I’ve had coyotes trot alongside me as I walk. They get within about twenty feet and match my pace. They are wary and keep an eye on my movements. I get no sense of threat from them. 

Bobcats don’t come as close when I’m walking but they have slept on our front patio, even on the chaise in our backyard.  Once while holding our two-year-old grandson’s hand I walked to the end of our cul de sac and nearly stumbled over a sleeping bobcat who blended so well with the vegetation that I didn’t see him until he stood up, stretched, and moved away into the wash. A bobcat slept unnoticed in our neighbor’s backyard wooden play structure and only left when the kids in the pool made a big racket and woke him. I know enough to keep a good distance from wild things especially if they have their babies with them. They can be dangerous if they feel threat.

Mostly I see a plethora of bird beings, in all varieties.  Bunnies and lizards/geckos of all shapes and sizes zip here and there in the underbrush or across the trails. Summertime means many of the animals retreat to the mountains and our valley is left with those that don’t travel. When cooler weather begins, the animals show up just as human snowbirds do. But honestly, the animals are more welcome because they don’t clog the streets and byways or crowd the restaurants and library. They add variety to my daily walks. They listen to my prayers.