The Chance Not Taken

Every once in a while life gives you a second chance; mine came the week before Christmas.

My first love was calling me just about every other day for the past six months. Years ago he was dark, dangerous and mysterious - straight from the cast of Wise Guys, the exact opposite of my Jehovah’s Witness elder ex-husband. It was 1975 or thereabouts. I was 25, still about as naïve as naïve gets and he said he was 26.

He was Italian, connected - one time I hugged him good-bye and was surprised to find he was packin’. That’s hot stuff for a former Bible thumper. Very hot.

There is Type A personality that is gogogogo … there is Type B personality, which is laid back like me. He was Triple A. He jogged, he played tennis and racquetball. Charlton Heston could have used him for a body double in Ben Hur.

I dabbled in fitness, but it bored me. It didn’t matter so much then - I was young.

He gambled, he hung with da boyz. And he lied about everything. He lied about being single (said he was in a relationship that would take “some sensitivity to get out of”), lied about being faithful to me, lied about his age (to the tune of about 9 years) … whatever he was dishing out, I was buying hook, line and sinker. I was living episodes from the Sopranos.

We had a wildly passionate relationship that lasted just under three years. Well, if you subtract the time I spent watching him watch football games he had bets on, maybe it was two years. Towards the end we were living together and I was pressing for commitment. One afternoon he called me at the office to say he’d gone to my apartment and packed his things.

I was a wreck at work. It was going on a month when my boss explained "that's what happens when you lose your first love." Hafe Kerbawy was like a father to me. He said "You need a vacation." I said “I can’t afford to go anywhere.” He said “pick a place - I’ll pay.”

It was a wildly generous thing for Hafe to do, but a total waste of money. A week in Acapulco did me no good.

It took three years to get over that first love. Maybe I never did get over it because four years ago I looked him up online - and found him, of course. He had married about a year after dumping me and that relationship was starting to decay. I was battling Lyme Disease and my relationship was failing too.

We met for coffee and he cried. He told me about his battle with cancer and said “I thought I might die without ever seeing you again.” In the months and years that followed, he kept saying his life would have been much better if he had married me.

Over the years he became a completely different guy. He had turned into an honorable and faithful husband to another woman. He had actively involved himself in raising her daughters and they’d had a son together.

We became friends. When you go from lover to friend, there is no loss - there is actually gain. Because friendship lasts. He got buddies to help move me out of my bad situation and we all supported him as he tried to decide between trying to work things out with his wife or give it up. In the years that followed, I repeatedly left and went back with my ex-boyfriend. Then, finally, I moved to Florida.

During that time he reconnected with a daughter he wasn't sure he had, moved in with her and her partner, got a divorce and found Jesus. We never got out of touch. When I went up north for Thanksgiving last month, I spent some time with him and his friends and family. It was great fun.

When you’re my age, female and single, you like to be able to think of one special person that you could potentially spend the rest of your life with. In this case, we were long past lovers - but maybe my feelings would change if we built on our strong friendship. I told my daughter-in-law “I think I could live with him for the rest of our lives and we would never exchange a harsh word.”

It was time to test the theory.

He had been asking me if he could come down for a visit. Not asking so much as hammering me. Here we are, both between relationships. So I finally said OK. He was glad, adding “we never got a chance to cuddle when you were up here.” And I thought to myself “that’s because I didn’t want to.”  It's very rare for me to click with guys these days. I've become a bit of a loner. I’m used to solitude - just me and my bitchez. They are so much a part of my life that I’m incapable of using the term “dogs”.

I am also a slob in my solitude, so I cleaned for two days. The place sparkled. He arrived around 3:00 on Thursday and gave me a big hug. I do not exaggerate; I was in pain from cleaning. Within a few days of arrival he made some comment about “some things never change; you need a laundry basket.” I winced. If he had any idea how hard I’d worked to make things perfect for him he would have been ashamed. I even washed the sheets for his bed the day he arrived so they would be fresher than fresh.

The day he arrived, he asked where he should take his bag. I pointed to the upstairs guest room, just past my bedroom. That first night he gave me a hug in front of my bedroom door as if to say “let’s both sleep here” and I patted his back like you pat a drunk uncle, shook my head and said “I have emails to catch up on.”

Living in Florida is wonderful. I get far more exercise now than when we were together and I love it. He works out … pretty much not at all, and he's proud of it. He’s a guy and - direct quote - "towns like this are crawling with desperate women.” He said it like he hoped it would bother me.

I was his chauffeur. I drove us to the Seminole Casino … and he dozed off open-mouthed in the passenger seat like my Grandma used to. I always feared her teeth would fall out and land in her lap.

When he wasn't on the phone, he was dozing off. He put his feet up on the ottoman when we watched TV and his ankles were as poofy as his rug; that was my chance to sneak up to my room and lock the door for the night. 

When he was awake he was sharp and I guess I never noticed how black and white we are until now. There is no gray.

I'm vegetarian and he's veal.  

I'm Stephen Colbert and he's Glenn Beck.

I’m Buddhist and he’s born again. He walked in, saw my Buddhas and suggested we “throw some crosses in here somewhere.”

He sees the way I love my girls and it makes him sick. He thinks there is something essentially fucked up about people who love animals. “God put them here to serve our purposes - to bend to our will, plow our fields and fill our plates.”

He is on the Tony Soprano diet. I offered to buy groceries but he insisted on eating every meal out - and every meal came with unwanted conversation. He sees vegetarian as cultlike and stupid.

On Sunday he asked me to direct him to a good sports bar and I was relieved to have some time off. He called around 5 and said the game was almost over, come on up - then we’d go out for pizza. I came up and the game went on ad nauseam. I joked “this is just like old times.” Except that I didn’t want halftime sex and I have a Blackberry to keep me occupied. 

Dinner at Starz in South Fort Myers is a very pleasant experience and fussy Mr. Pizza Afficionado LOVED the pizza. However ... I don’t know which behavior is more rude - to text at the dinner table or talk to someone else on your cell phone at a restaurant, voice raised with Wise Guy-isms and profanities that had the meek white masses cowering with eyes as wide as his 70s lapels.

I kept hoping he'd take his calls outside, but ... I dunno, maybe he enjoys making a spectacle of himself. At one point he bellowed into his phone “I’D LIKE TO KILL THAT MUTHAFUCKER!!!”

I slipped down in my side of the booth and muttered “nice Christian”.

We were out for greasy breakfasts at the Sunshine Café every morning. It’s a local legend for great inexpensive breakfasts and our waitress was a riot.

We didn’t have lunch so much as we had pre-dinner before dinner and on and on and on and on. He was extremely generous. I went out more in the past five days than I've been out in five months, but I missed my simple life, my peace, my quiet.

Some people have a personal theme that lies at the core of all conversation. His was anti-pet - “animals are here to serve US, not vice versa.” I was a good Buddhist for five days. Then I blew this morning at the Sunshine Café. It was our last greasy breakfast before he headed to the airport.

He put $40 on my dining room table before we took his bags out to the car. He said it was for dog food. (Yeah, I don’t quite get it either. Is that a pre-apology? Men - the new women.)

So we’re sitting there at the Sunshine Café and Dash is waiting on us. (I want Dash’s wildly outgoing personality in my next life.)

She was hanging out with us a bit, then she wandered away so we could eat our breakfast.

Him - "I really do like animals."

Me - (joking) "Yeah, sauteed or blackened."

Him - "My dad had a hunting dog ..."

Me - (blowing) "YOU MAY NEVER TELL ME THAT STORY AGAIN!!! YOUR FATHER'S ACTIONS WERE DESPICABLE."

He has told me this story about five times in the past year. It makes me sick.

His father had a hunting dog up in Michigan. It was never allowed in the house except for ONE BITTER COLD WINTER DAY when his mother convinced his father to let the poor thing in so it wouldn't freeze to death. When the dog had puppies, his father DROWNED them because he couldn't sell them or give them away.

He always ends the story with "that's just how things were then. Dogs are just dogs." In the past I've always sat there seething as he blabbers on. I know damned well my family never treated their dogs that way before I was born - or after.

This particular morning I was off the leash - not with volume, but with choice of words and waving my finger in his face. I can’t believe I did that, I think it’s genetic. He got the expression of vaguely remembering that level of rage from our past. Except I don’t remember having anything like balls when we were together. Now mine are bigger than his.

I raged “top of the food chain means we’re smart enough to choose whether we NEED to take the life of one of God’s creatures or learn how to do without.” Rant rant rant … silently mouthing all F-bombs because I know the demographic in South Fort Myers and I respect their right to not hear my profanities.

Nearby tables went stone silent.

I was a HORRENDOUS Buddhist. When I was done he looked at his napkin and said “I’ve noticed I push buttons more than I used to.”

He joked I would be glad to see him go. I don't remember coming back with a comforting response.

In answer to my own question - no, I could NOT spend the rest of my life with this man. Time has changed ME too much.

And - until I meet the right person - I really do like my life the way it is.

A real life Christmas story; getting past grief.

My granddaughter Emma and her dog Buddy

mesmerized at the beaver dam this past Thanksgiving. 

I was going through clothing racks Christmas shopping for my granddaughters last week when I saw a little purple fleece jacket. Three years ago I would have bought it for my Granddmother. At 96, the tiny woman weighed her age. She had dementia, so there were only two joys left; colors and textures. She would have loved that jacket. The pangs of pain and loss were sudden and fierce.

If I were up north with family today, we would take a beer to the cemetery at the end of Himanka Hill and share it with my Uncle Jerry, who passed a few years back. A few sips for us, a somewhat generous pour for him.

I would have put something on my Great Grandmother's grave as well. A flower or a coin. She is not forgotten.

One of my friends is in mourning; this is his first Christmas without his father. He is inconsolable.

My friend Connie is caring for a dying mother and can't bring herself to imagine life alone. She is in love with a man who also has loss issues. This morning she sent me this email. What a wonderful way to start Christmas day.

(Connie started a goose farm in Missouri three years ago after a physical and financial fall from grace. Her communications always have a way of putting my own worries into perspective. Somehow the universe - or human spirit - pulls us through.)

I have to add that Connie was beaten by her mother as a child. So remember that when you read the words of the woman who now cares for her mother as if it never happened. She is one of the strongest, most honorable people I have ever known.

This is pure Connie with just enough editing to remove personal stuff. Gary is her boyfriend.

"Hope you are doing ok. And hope the Christmas holidays are not fucking with you, like they are with some people. You know what I am so slowly realizing? That people who address their fears and failures and mistakes and disappointments in life are brave. You are brave. We are brave people.

Gary. He is like a Greek tragedy. There is so much sorrow and loss at every turn for him. This Christmas, his daughter wanted him to host the Xmas Eve get together that his mom always had for the grandkids. That sounds so innocent. Until you realize that its his first Xmas without any of his family. So for him, that was like getting punched in the stomach. He cant think about his mom without tearing up. She was the last to leave him. I cant even think about that...how did she feel, dying and knowing she was leaving him alone, without his brothers or dad or best friend. My heart clutches thinking about that family.

I kept asking him about it as the time grew nearer. God, I hated bringing it up! To not host it was to ignore the grandchildren's loss of their grandmother and their tradition. Even if they are all teens now, they need traditions to look back upon that continue beyond deaths. What a loss for them if he decided to not do it. Not hosting it would deepen their losses of their dads (Garys brothers) and their grandparents as well. They expect him to be an adult, a parent and do what's right for them and protect them from the sadness of the holiday without their family.

But what about Gary and his extreme grief that is so horrible that he cant face it? What is fair or right about forcing him to face these things before he is able to? He couldnt even think about it. As soon as Id ask about it you could see the iron walls slamming down. All I would be able to get out were tiny sentences at him like, "Buddy, they think you are superman.... they rely upon you to be superhuman" "Remember it is their traditions you are involved with also" "Try to understand they cant know your pain. I cant either. But you cant know their's." "Don't make decisions now that you will regret later on"

After 2 weeks of this type of tiptoeing, whispering and touching on his pain and wondering if he was angry or relieved that I kept it alive, he hosted the kids at his place tonight. He had his daughter put the tree up, he built a fire in the fireplace, he put presents under the tree for them and made lasagne and home made bread for their dinner. My heart almost broke when he told me that. I called him later, just after Lauren (his daughter) went home. He was so OK Micki. His nephew came. He got to spend time with Lauren, his bad boy son was home spending the night and he got to feed them. And they got to walk into their grandparents house, smelling of a fire in the fireplace, lasange cooking and fresh bread. That had to be healing for all of them.

We all have these choices to make and...... I dont know. We all have demons we have kept fat and fed in our heads because they were too painful to face. They remind me of the "unknown".. you know? The anticipation and fear that is associated with the unknown is what can paralyze us. Like my deciding to hug and tell Mom every night that I love her and will see her in the morning, after we got the cancer diagnosis. This is a woman I never hugged in my adult life! She scared the hell out of us. Like my sister - who bit me when I hugged her- why take the chance showing my family any love? But, it's that slight chance that it might make things better. And knowing that I would regret not trying it. What could it heal? What could it hurt? What's the worst thing that could happen?

I wonder, how having done this brave thing Gary did, how it will affect him. And what it did to those kids. I swear it "made" my Christmas hearing his happiness afterwards..I didnt know how much it was weighing on me.

I dont think men are very brave in the heart area. Especially men who have been thought of as brave physically- policmen, firefighter, EMTs... prison guards...So their sadness doesnt surprise me at all. They have made decisions worthy of regret. Probably many that they can never change or go back to and re-examine.

I have been looking and looking for this fossil I own. It is a fossilized horse or camel tooth. It's just cool. I found it in a bag of petrified wood pieces Id bought from a local guy who digs them out of the fields by the rivers. I like the petrified wood pieces because they look just like wood chunk mulch- except they are stone. Kind of a stupid visual joke for a landscaper like me, to have a bowl of mulch on the table. Anyway, I really wanted to give it to Gary for Christmas.

I finally found it today when I was cleaning my mom's place.... so he is getting a feather bed and fossilized camel tooth. I think he will like that tooth a lot for some reason."

(End of Connie's email.)

Gary gave Connie a clumsily wrapped gift for Christmas. She IMd, laughing that "a screwdriver" is sticking out of the wrapper." She said "he bought me tools". Most women would be furious.

I wrote back "what other man would give such a gift and what other woman would love that he did!"

Connie's mom will not be here very long and Connie will be alone on that farm. I am so glad Gary found her, I know he will be there for her when the time comes. And I hope he enjoys his tooth:-)

Merry Christmas; love the ones you love and try to tolerate the ones you don't.

A little more health care rant before I shut up.

A study by the Institute of Medicine estimated that one American dies every 30 minutes from lack of health insurance. David Himmelstein, a study co-author and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said. "Even his grim figure is an underestimate—now one dies every 12 minutes."

LET'S TALK VETERANS.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's March 2009 Population Survey, 1,461,615 veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 were uninsured -- that is, they neither had health insurance nor received ongoing care at Veterans Health Administration hospitals or clinics -- in 2008.

In January of 2007 Michael Baranik was told he had terminal cancer. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was also told that his veteran's health care insurance wasn't adequate to cover the number of chemotherapy sessions he would need.

Over the next few weeks, Jennings went from one doctor to another, hoping to find one who would give him the needed treatment. In a letter to the non-profit, National Nurses Organizing Committee he wrote "Luckily, I begged and begged a doctor, who said he would only give me seven treatments because of insurance". But his efforts weren't enough. Jennings died a few months after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Liz Jacobs, of the California Nurses Association, said Jennings was "very ill" when he contacted them two years ago. In the letter he wrote to the National Nurses Organizing Committee he said, "This is what I get for serving my country for 24 years. If I had known this when I joined, I would never have joined. "I would have left this country, given up my citizenship and lived in a country where they respect the men and women that protect their freedom."

Harvard Medical School said lack of health insurance claimed the lives of more than 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 last year. That number is more than 14 times the number of deaths suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and twice as many as have died since the war began in 2003.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler a professor of medicine says "Uninsured veterans are a stain on America's flag. It's particularly striking that a combat veteran who has already served his country is denied [adequate] health care."

In 2007 Woolhandler testified before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. He said "Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people - too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care."

LET'S TALK CHILDREN

According to a study by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, lack of adequate health care insurance may have contributed to the deaths of some 17,000 hospitalized U.S. children over the past two decades. The research was compiled from more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005 and concluded that "uninsured children are 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance. When comparing death rates by underlying disease, the uninsured appeared to have increased risk of dying independent regardless of their medical condition."

Lead investigator Fizan Abdullah, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center says “If you are a child without insurance, if you're seriously ill and end up in the hospital, you are 60 percent more likely to die than the sick child in the next room who has insurance."

Co-investigator Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins and medical director of the Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care says "Thousands of children die needlessly each year because we lack a health system that provides them health insurance. This should not be. In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health insurance to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic issue."

OK, I'll shut up.

Blue Cross Blue Shield; they finally called.

I applied for BCBS Catastrophic. They told me they'd call back in a few weeks. It was a few months.

Understand that in the past five years or so I (inhaling deeply to get it all out in on sentence) got super sick, saw doctors, spent two years undergoing tests and treatments for whatever they thought I might have - backtracked to the tick, got IV antibiotics for Lyme Disease, dumped all my prescription meds because they didn't seem like they were doing anything, started feeling a little better, moved where it was warm, made myself engage in regular physical activity, started doing yoga, started eating right and taking really good care of myself and got my FULL health back WITHOUT doctors.

So of course I do not deserve health insurance.

I was in the last mile of a four mile walk when I got the call. I was not huffing and puffing. My pulse rate was perfect.

The woman from BCBS proceeded to tell me why I cannot have health insurance.

Basically, because of test results from four years ago when I was very ill. She rattled it off ... mitral valve prolapse (mitral valve prolapse is uncomfortable but it's not life threatening), Epstein Barr Virus (which was no longer testing positive after two years), all the ailments that were part and parcel of Lyme Disease. In fact, "Lyme Disease" was the one term she DID NOT use in explaining why I had been denied.

She said my records show that I was on disability. I said I had applied for it while sick, but never got it. I did not say that two years of illness without disability insurance cost me everything I worked a lifetime to earn - my commercial property and my house.

What I did say was that I got well down here and was working full-time until March of this year. Somehow she assumed I must have lost my job here due to illness, and I said "no, because of the ECONOMY." I nearly SPELLED it for her so she would UNDERSTAND.

She sounded surprised.

She said well maybe if I go back to the doctor from four years ago and redo the special tests, maybe I could qualify. (Ask yourself - how much would THAT COST without health insurance?!) I said I DON'T LIVE IN MICHIGAN ANY MORE.

She sounded surprised.

Well how long have you lived there? THREE YEARS IN MAY.

She sounded confused. She sounded like she felt sorry for me. It has to suck to be the one making life-changing calls based on bullshit, erroneous files.

UNITED STATES HEALTH CARE AS IT STANDS IS A JOKE, A CLUSTER FUCK THAT IS ALLOWING PEOPLE TO DIE.

Angry? Oh FUCK yes.

Does this CHANGE anything? Yeah, one thing.

If I DO have a medical emergency of catastrophic proportions I will NOT hesitate to get my sorry ass to E.R. and let them pull out their extreme measures to save my life because there is NOTHING LEFT TO TAKE.

The lying, cheating, blood-sucking money monger health care and disability insurance industries can't ruin me any more than they already have.

Thanksgiving in Bruce's Crossing, Michigan

I spent a week at my son's place at Grass Lake before we headed up to my folks' place for Thanksgiving. "We" consisted of me, my son, daughter in-law, two granddaughters, son's Lab and my two dogs.

Shawn likes to drive all night - with a nine hour drive, it's a good way to go. We leave around 6. That allows enough evening for the girls to watch a few movies and fall asleep at regular hours. My son and DIL took turns driving.

We arrived at 4 a.m.

I was granted the sleeper sofa, made famous by the Seinfeld episode wherein Elaine's back goes out from similar sleeping arrangements in Del Boca Vista. I was too tired to notice the bars poking through the bedding until a few days in.

There was more laughter and less weirdness this time. Grandpa was sick about a month ago, he looks good; but we worry. The winters are very hard on people.

Grandma has decided if the bathroom door isn't locked, she'll walk right in and talk as comfortably as if you were in a recliner in the living room. I was aghast - this from the woman who raised me to think it was improper to walk around in a slip in front of other women. I started locking the doors.

All else was good. They went out to the woods and cut down the perfect tree, as wide as it is high. Like we would have been if we ate everything my mother baked.

Mom, Emma and I walked the woods. Princess, my rescue dog has apparently never seen woods before; she howled with delight.

Leaving was sad.

We had Sunday to rest up at my son's house, then I started the long drive back to Florida on Monday. I knew winter would be nipping at my heels, but I caught a two day window of decent weather.

Aside from a Motel 6 that made the last one look like a Ritz Carlton, it was uneventful.

DO NOT STAY AT THE MOTEL 6 IN DALTON, GA!!! Holy shit. You know you're in a bad place when scary guys in baggy pants round a corner and you notice - with horror - that they've come from a better motel.

It seems all pet friendly motels reek of cigarette smoke. The TV was only slightly larger than a TV Guide and my security lock was hanging off the hinges, like the door had been kicked in at one time or the other.

I expected I'd be sharing the place with pimps and crack hos. When I peeked out the window at 4 a.m., the lot was full of nice minivans. Apparently cheap white people traveling with dogs are the new target market for armpit motels.

Dogs are excellent travelers, great company.

We made it home by sunset Tuesday - 1,350 miles.