Category: Memories

The Beginning of the End ~ A Nurse to the End

It was January 21, 2010. I woke at 4:34 AM thinking that it’s still too early to get up for work. But then I realized that Mom was calling me. She tells me that she can’t breathe and can no longer function. I knew this day was coming but I wasn’t ready for her to go yet.

She tells me to call the Portland Clinic, and I do. Her long time physician, Dr. Craven, is not on call. The doctor on-call calls back after 20 minutes.

When I explained what is happening and I tell him that she wants to go to the hospital in an ambulance. He says to call 911. I do.

I sit beside Mom, holding her hand, helpless. In the meantime, I call Kristi and Steve to tell them what is happening.

First, a fire truck arrives, lights flashing, lighting up our small street. Four large men, dressed in blue, crowded into Mom’s bedroom with their cases of equipment and tools hanging from their belts. I stand aside.

Mom had advanced directives not to code but in violation of her own predetermined decisions, she tells them she wants help breathing. She tells them in full sentences, everything they need to know while she’s struggling to breathe. They take her vitals. I stand silent knowing instinctively who’s in charge.

Then, the ambulance arrives. More men squeeze into Mom’s, what seems now to be a, very tiny bedroom, each carrying more equipment. Mom reiterates everything to the EMTs that she just told the other guys.

Quickly, they wrap her up in her blankets like a sausage and two guys grab handfuls of the blankets from the top and carry her into the living room where they put her on a gurney. Then they wheeled her out to the ambulance.

Two guys are in back with Mom and I climb in front with the driver. Mom continues to tell them what they need to know. She struggles to breathe until they use a c-pap to blow large quantities of oxygen into her lungs. She can no longer talk. I can’t believe she’s been talking through this whole ordeal.

After the EMTs get an IV started, we take off across the St. Johns bridge. Once we get across and onto Hwy. 30, the lights and sirens are turned on, as Matt tells the driver to step on it. I can’t see Mom and I can’t hear her. This is not how I want it to end.

In the emergency room, the nurses and doctors get to work putting who knows what in the IV.

Before looking, the doctor shows me the chest x-ray along with an old x-ray from 2005. Her lungs are hazy and her heart is large. There is fluid around the lungs, a sign of congestive heart failure. It’s something she’s had for 10 years. He says she probably won’t live long.

Mom is breathing with the help of oxygen and the doctor wants to keep her in the hospital. When she’s stable they move her to a private room. Here she stays for a couple of weeks.

Mom was in her element. This very hospital is where she spent 40 years as a career nurse. She seemed to have recovered from the emergency. For those two weeks, I visit her daily while friends and family stream in and out. Many visitors were physicians and co-workers who stopped to tell stories of working with her, or under her supervision and nurses who were once students who she had mentored.

I learned more about her professional life in those weeks than I ever knew before. I knew she was a VIP, but I didn’t know how respected and loved she was.

Mom talked about going into a home when she leaves the hospital. She swore up and down that she wanted to. We had already gone over and over this. I didn’t believe her. “No! Mom. Absolutely not. You can stay home, this is where you’ll stay.”

Kristi and I decided to acquiesce and went to look at a few small care homes just to satisfy Mom. Though Mom and I had lived together for nearly 20 years, she kept insisting that she did not want to burden me. After visiting, we were more convinced than ever that she wasn’t going into a home.

How would we manage to go to see her if she weren’t at home with me? It was enough just to go to work and back again, run errands, cook dinner, shop, etc., without having to drive across town to visit Mom. And I knew Mom didn’t really want that, she just didn’t want to put me out.

For the next four months, Mom sits or lies in a hospital bed situated in the living room directly in front of the windows. From here she can see what passes in front of the house. She can also see her many visitors arriving.

I took family medical leave until hospice care came in to relieve me five days a week so that I could return to work. And Kristi drove hundreds of miles every weekend to help out.

Mom lost all strength in her legs but every other function worked perfectly well. That meant that she needed assistance to maintain her hygiene. Though these were not chores I relished, I did them with love. Unlike Mom, I had no inclination to nurse but I would not abandon her. She had seen me through polio and cancer. This was the least I could do.

Mom and I had dinner together every evening and she filled me in on her day with the caretakers. Apparently, she enjoyed their companionship and had many stories to tell.

Just as any good nurse would, she was keeping her own chart: recorded type and time of medication administration, size and frequency of BMs and urine output, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, etc.

I served Mom in bed, while I sat not far away at the dining room table. Soon after finishing her dinner each evening, she was ready for dessert, which I was to bring, post haste. Eventually, I had to gently tell her that I wasn’t her nurse’s aid and that once I had finished my dinner, I would bring dessert. She understood immediately and was quite apologetic.

Though I helped her with her toilet each evening, I also had to tell her that I wasn’t going to estimate her output in size and quantity. She was sorely disappointed but did not utter one disgruntled word. Eventually, I also asked her to either give up charting or trust me to bring her meds on time. It was annoying to be reminded constantly that in 20 minutes it would be time for such and such. She got it. She kept her chart, but kept silent about it.

If one didn’t know why she was in bed, one wouldn’t know that this beautiful lady was just months, then weeks, then days away from death. Nightly, I would mix a dry, dirty martini, Beefeater Gin only please, with 3 green olives or 3 cocktail onions for her and something wonderful for me. Then we would chat and watch Jeapardy and Wheel of Fortune and whatever else was on that we wanted to watch. Mom was a very sociable and gracious companion.

Mostly during the day, while I was at work, Mom would entertain friends or family who came to visit. I don’t believe she had one boring day. If she had a quiet day, Mom would read, do crossword puzzles, read the newspapers and watch the news. The living room filled with cards and flowers.

As we knew would happen, the day came for her passing. She called me in the early morning hours. It was May but not yet light out. I turned on a dim light and I sat with her on her bed and took her soft hand, as she asked me to help her “get off of this”, as she motioned with her hand, touching her chest from where her heart was, out into the air. I asked her what she meant but she would just make the same hand gesture and repeat the same words. I offered suggestions such as, a road, a path, or a trail. But with each suggestion she would say, “no smaller”.

Mom was very calm. I so wanted to understand what it was that she wanted me to do. How can I help her to “get off of this” if I don’t know what “this” is? I knew she was ready to die because we had talked about this at infinitium. But she was worried about leaving me alone. She wanted me to be loved by someone and to be cared for.

I finally remembered something I had learned many years before. It was that our soul is connected to eternity with a golden thread. When I said, Mom, is it a thread?” She suddenly relaxed. I told her that I couldn’t cut it for her but that she was free to go, that I would be fine, and that I loved her more than she would ever know and I knew how much she loved me. I have no idea if she understood when I said a thread, except that it seemed to satisfy her. Maybe I had finally mentioned something that was actually small enough.

We sat there until the sun came up. This morning there were no ablutions, no coffee, no breakfast. She really didn’t want anything. I don’t even remember what we said to one another but I know we spoke soft words.

Mom had everything in order and didn’t need to ask me for anything. Besides the family and close friends I knew who to call. Family began to show up as did her friends to say goodbye. For a good part of the day she would speak to people as they would come and go. But as the day wore on she spoke less and began to spend her time, her final hours, with her eyes closed. When one would speak to her she would make a soft sound as if to say I know you’re there.

Slowly people went away having said their goodbyes. This left Hannah, Kristi and I alone with her to accompany her as she passed away. The hospice nurse that showed up towards the end of the day, stayed to pronounce her death and to sign the appropriate papers. She melted into the background and was hardly noticeable. She told us that as a person dies their last sense to go is their hearing and encouraged us speak to her.

We sat on her bed, touching her. We told her that we loved her and that we would miss her but that it was also okay for her to go, she didn’t need to hold on. She was so relaxed and her face softened with a pink glow and her wrinkles seemed to disappear. Soon we had no more words and all we could do was hum and sing without words. Mom almost imperceptibly took her last breath. It took us some time before we could move away from her. By this time, it was nearing midnight.

Mom had donated her body to the OHSU Body Donation Program. While we waited for them to come for her, we sat talking and looking at this beautiful body that had belonged to someone that had served so many and would be remembered for her love, intelligence and so much more.

But right up until her dying day, Mom was in charge. Two things that I will always remember is hearing Dad say, “Norma, you’re not in charge here at home.” Second, was numerous people saying they’d never heard her say a bad word about anyone. Now that’s a legacy!

When Dancing Salsa Hurts

I’ve always been a dancer. I started out dancing standing on my daddy’s feet. He was a master “jitterbugger” and danced at the drop of a hat.

I was enrolled in tap dance when I was 4 years old. I took ballet classes as a young child through high school. I even danced in The Nutcracker Suite at the Keller Auditorium. As an adult, I taught dance aerobics for years.

At 47, dance had always been a big part of my life. I was fresh from Mexico where I danced myself almost to death. I learned cumbia and salsa and folk dancing. When I returned to the States, my first goal was to find a place to speak Spanish and to dance.

It was at ChaCha’s where those wishes came true. The Cubans were newly arrived from Guantanamo Bay where they had wiled away their lives imprisoned for two years for trying to leave their country. Their first goal here was to find a dance/social club as soon as they could.

Many were lonely. Many had experienced horrors you can’t imagine. Many missed home. Most did not speak English.

I descended the steps at Cha Cha’s into the basement of the dance club. The music was shaking the walls and the people were shaking the floors. It took about a minute or two for a beautiful dancer named Ramiro to grab my hands as he guided me onto the crowded dance floor.

I won’t go into this story because I’ve written about what happened after that first night in Cha Cha’s in other blog posts. But this is where I learned to dance casino, salsa and rumba, Cuban style.

At first I just copied what Ramiro did. I secretly described the rumba as the chicken dance. As it turns out, I was right. He held me tight for the slow dances but with incredible rhythm and finesse for the rest. I was hooked.

After that, for the next 3 years, days and nights were filled with dance. It was like an attempted murder when that was taken away from me. I thought I would die but I survived but not unscathed.

Ramiro in his love and kindness led me to believe for all this time that I could dance as well as he and the other Cubans. I don’t exaggerate to say that he was the best among them. If I was around any of the Cubans still, you actually could ask them and they would agree.

From my other stories, I know that you know that I have an arm that was affected by polio. Because of that and the subsequent surgeries pertaining to the weakness in my right shoulder, I don’t have a full range of movement. If you know anything about dancing, having a full range of movement in both arms is essentially imperative, so they say. But not to Ramiro.

Ramiro never mentioned my arm. He just made it work. He skillfully used my left arm and the limited capacity of my right arm to spin and twirl me expertly. I don’t think anyone ever noticed… until the night a friend of Ramiro’s asked to dance with me.

This night, there was a gathering at a friend’s house. As always, there was music and people dancing. Ramiro and I, of course, were dancing and drinking and eating and laughing and talking.

It was this same night that I was nearly mortally wounded. I survived but still suffer to a small degree. The scars are still painful. My heart bled then as it does now and my tears still flow with the memory.

Who or what hurt me so terribly that I remember it with a sharp pain in my heart? What happened? Who hurt me and what did he do? Let the guilty be named and let him be prosecuted. His name is La Meda.

You might say that this is overly dramatic, but to me, it is not. Remember, I had been dancing since I was tiny when I was enrolled in tap dance and had classes in ballet. My parents danced in the house and when visiting family and friends. Their nights out would be at dance clubs. Dancing was a big part of my life, polio or no.

La Meda was a Cuban, A so-called friend of Ramiro’s from their days in Guantanamo. I never liked him and I never trusted him. You know how some people can just give you a vibe that you don’t trust, that you don’t like. I knew he had an American girlfriend and I knew that he cheated on her every weekend. I knew his girlfriend and I knew the girls he cheated with.

So when La Meda asked to dance with me I was reticent. Ramiro loved to dance with me and I think that he wanted to show La Meda something he was proud of. He was also proud of my fluency in Spanish. But I don’t think La Meda really wanted to dance with me, I think he had bad intentions.

He grabbed my hands and we began to dance. He immediately started to do all of the arm things, which I couldn’t do. It didn’t take more than 2 or 3 minutes for him to show that I was unable. As we danced, he was scowling, looking in my eyes and looking at Ramiro, scoffing.

He dropped my hands and gave me a slight push. As he walked away from me, he said to Ramiro, “she can’t dance”. To that, Ramiro was silent. He grabbed my hands and we danced throughout the rest of the night.

From that night on, we didn’t see La Meda again… at least I didn’t. I’ll be forever thankful for the time I had with Ramiro and all of the love and all of the dancing that we did. Have I forgiven La Meda? Apparently not.

Dancing salsa can hurt.

Ode to the Old Lemon Tree

Today, I’ll make lemon pudding, I thought. I’ll squeeze the fat fruit. I’ll scrape the bright rind. I’ll stir the cornstarch and sugar together with the zest then I’ll pour in the juice. I’ll stir in sweet milk and when it begins to thicken, I’ll add in the creamy butter.

Then there came a memory like they are wont to do.

A lemon tree stood alone in the yard, scarce of leaf, bent and rough of bark, unexpectedly laden with fruit.

That old tree brought me joy on days when I tired of rice and onions. I’d go to gather the flawed, dimpled, sun-like yellow fruit to make pudding.

All I needed then was sugar, an egg, a lemon and cornstarch to stir until thickened. Lemon desserts aren’t lemon to me unless they make my jaw hurt from the tartness.

Now that I have the luxury of butter and milk, it doesn’t diminish the sweet and tart lemon pudding I made when I was poor… more poor than I am now.

The old lemon tree is far away but I’m sure it still stands. Why would anyone dare to cut down such a bountiful tree. But then who knows for sure what others might do. At least in my memory it still stands.

Now, I buy lemons from the bins at the store, the same store where I buy the butter and milk. I don’t know where any of them have come from or how far they’ve traveled.

I’d prefer anyday to go out and gather lemons from the old lemon tree. I’d fill my pockets with the warm fruit, heavy with juice and make the simple pudding that makes life good.

The Case of the Stolen Borscht Recipe

How was I to know she would be offended. I thought this would honor her. But it affected our relationship, negatively, from that day forward .

It was decades ago and we had moved from Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound, off the coast of Washington, and into the astoundingly and equally beautiful Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.

We lived on the Island for about 7 years. During that time, we met some very interesting people. Among them were Magdalene and her husband Ivor. They had both been born to Ukrainian parents in the same refugee camp in Germany after WWII was over. His family was then sent to England and hers to the US to begin again.

Their families didn’t know one another. But later, once both Ivor and Magdalene were grown young adults, by happenstance, they met in New York City and fell in love. I won’t continue their story since it’s their story to tell.

How they ended up on Whidbey Island with 2 children in tow, I can’t recall. We moved to the Island because we were promised a house and a job. An old high school friend of Jack’s was pastoring a church there and had connections.

It was at this church that we met Ivor and Magdalene. Now, when I look back, it was the friends that we made that made being in a toxic environment seem worth it. I still have a couple of friends from that time. Fewer, of course, because whenever you leave “the church” being ostracized is the norm. But I digress.

The Borscht

I’m no expert, but from what I learned, borscht is an everyday, common soup/stew eaten in many countries of the world. Mainly made of beets, which gives it its distinctively rich, red bordeaux color and the tomatoes, fresh or canned. It takes on unique flavors based on the meat used for the broth and the addition of other mostly root vegetables. Some cooks add cabbage and others add saurkraut. Dill, fresh or dried, is sprinkled in liberally.

Once the meat is seared with the onions and garlic, water is added to cover and then left to simmer until the meat is fall off the bone tender and the broth is rich and savory. Various meats can be used… like I said, this is not a “precious” soup. Its kinda like a “what’s in the fridge” kinda everyday soup. Anyway, this is what I was taught.

Then carrots, potatoes and other vegetables of your choice are added and cooked until very tender. The meat always used in this recipe was pork short ribs. Once everything is red, dyed by the beet juice and it fills the kitchen with a delectable fragrance, you should dish up huge full ladles into big bowls. Forget about small bowls.

This is a main course soup eaten with crusty, white bread or other breads of your choice. I can imagine a dark rye sliced into thick slabs smeared with soft butter. Never mind if your bread is a day or two old. This soup is made for dunking bread in.

The finishing touch is a large dollop of sour cream, sprinkled with cayenne pepper and more dill. This soup quickly became a staple in our household even though the children wouldn’t eat it. Why, I’ll never know because they’re advenurous eaters and have always been. Even to this day they turn their noses up in disgust when I offer to make a pot of borscht.

So, I’ve kind of roughly given you the recipe for what I learned to make from Magdalene. While living on the Island, we would often go to their house after church to eat with them. More often than not, there was the delicious pot of borscht on the stove. I could always eat bowl after bowl after bowl.

I was so enamored of this soup, I asked Magdalene one day for the recipe. She gladly told me how to make it just like I’ve told you here. She would say things like, “pork short ribs or spare ribs or left over roast, whatever you have”. And the same for the vegetables with the exception of the beets and she always used saurkraut and so when I began to make my own pots of borscht, of course I always used pork short ribs and there was always the saurkraut. I wanted mine to taste just like hers.

The theft of the borscht recipe

As I mentioned before, even though the kids didn’t like the soup, I still made it often enough to make them complain. I didn’t change a thing that Magdalene had taught me.

It seemed only natural when a morning TV show, that I watched almost daily, had a cooking contest. They were asking for recipes with a $25, or was it a $50, prize for the one chosen as the most delicious and desirable. Within a month my recipe had won the prize and a check arrived in the mail and the recipe connected to my name was announced on the morning show. To me this was just good fun. And even though I knew how good the soup was, I wasn’t really expecting to win, so it was a wonderful surprise to hear my name and the name of the recipe announced.

Excited, I called Magdalene to tell her and to tell her I would share the money with her or that I would give it all to her since it was her recipe. She responded in a way that I never expected. She was mad. She was offended. She wanted nothing to do with it or with me. She hung up on me right then and there.

From then on there was a rift between us. We never saw one another again even though she had moved to the eastern part of Washington and we had moved into the Gorge. We never even talked to one another on the phone again.

Occasionally, I saw her posts on Facebook. She had survived cancer and had grandchildren. She looked wonderful and I missed her as a friend. This morning, another mutual friend told me that Magdalene had died 2 years ago after a fight, I assume, from another bout with cancer.

Then the memories of the borscht theft came rushing in. Without doubt, every time I make borscht, I remember Magdalene and the infamous theft. Thank you, Magdalene, for the wonderful unintentional gift of borscht. I’ll never forget you.

Japanese Quince and Dad

When we were kids, Dad said we had to choose one of the many gardens in the backyard to keep weed free.

Mom worked nights and so slept during the day. On weekdays we were in school but on the weekends Dad was home and he liked to keep us busy. He was a big believer in chores. In the cold months we usually had to help with the dusting or other house work but in the summer we had chores outside.

Of all the gardens, I chose the garden underneath the nook windows that had a row of Japanese Quince. This side of the house faced North and so was generally shaded by the house. It seemed to be the perfect environment for the Japanese Quince. It was always damp under the bushes. A little bit of dark green moss grew on the surface of the dirt.

In the Spring, the bushes broke forth in riotous blossoms. They were, what I thought was a perfect shade of pink, with a hint of orange giving them a deep hue of salmon.

Nothing grew underneath the hard stems covered in wicked thorns. The moss did a good job of acting as mulch creating a weed free environment. You would only need to get close to the bushes for those thorns to seemingly reach out and grab your hair or your clothes. If you were that unlucky you would probably end up with a tear in your sleeve or end up crying trying to untangle your hair from the thorn.

It was strange that a child would prefer these bushes to any of the other flower gardens in the yard. But I loved them and I love them to this day.

And now that I look back on that time, I think it was not at all strange that Dad would let me choose a garden that needed no weeding. You were the best dad in the world, Dad.

Black Rooster in My Kitchen – and Sacrifice

Sacrificial Rooster

“Get a black rooster”, he said. “Keep it 30 days, then after, bring it to me”, he said, his eyes squinted behind thick cigar smoke.

He is big and white with close cropped grey hair that stands on end in a military style crew cut. He has an imposing bearing and a deep voice. His glasses are modern and wire rimmed. His fingers gleam with rings with diamonds and other precious stones and his wrists with bracelets and an expensive watch. Around his neck are strings of beads in black and red and others in pure white. I couldn’t guess his age… maybe 40s or maybe 70s. He exudes a casual sexual energy, a pervading sensuality. He laughs often and with ease, but some how he is serious, serious as a heart attack. When he speaks, you are compelled to listen.

Charles owns Botanica Manuel. In the front window of the storefront, in a seedy part of town, he stocks herbs and incense, oils, statuary of the orishas, and malas of many colors. A life size statue of a black Latino peasant, stands with its feet among paraphernalia. This is Manuel, beside him is a statue of Manuel’s wife. This is Charles’ “dog”, his personal spirit guide, guardian and servant. But in the back, behind a curtain is a different scene, a different world. His shop is small and crowded, though from what I gathered, is not the source of his relative wealth.

Charles is a Santero, a priest in Santeria and a practitioner and priest of Palo. He is not to be messed with. It’s something you just know, you can feel it. There is danger lurking and yet a profound love.

I know as I follow my mentor, Don Cosentino, through a black curtain into a tiny room, that I need to keep my mouth shut. There are chairs in a circle. The space is dark. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust in the darkness. There are others sitting closely together. There’s an air of anticipation.

Today, as I write this post, my memory fails to recall everything in this room. It is cramped with many accoutrement but there is a vision that no amount of time can erase. Next to me appears to be a fire pit. There are railroad spikes, dirt, ashes, bones, a nganga filled with sticks and other things I can’t make out. There’s a chicken’s head that from the bloody neck, appears to have been freshly killed, and a goat’s skull. I see ornately beaded walking sticks and against another wall, drums bedecked with bells and woven shoulder straps.

A nganga is an iron receptacle or a cauldron used for ritual and is used as a source of power. It can contain many things such as sticks, feathers, railroad spikes, graveyard dirt, ashes of humans and animals and animal skulls and they have been known to contain even a more power source, a human skull. It is within this cauldron that the spirit of the dead resides, or as it is known as, the dog. This spirit does the bidding of its owner and assists in divination according to the pact made between them. Manuel is Charles’ “dog” to do his bidding.

About the time it started to feel very close, Charles walks in. He is dressed all in white. He appears to have a crippled foot on which he can barely put any weight. He wears a pained expression. Charles is now inhabited by Manuel, a former slave in his life on earth, who was injured in work and by abuse. He sits and greets us with familiarity and affection but with a certain authority. He is handed a cigar at least 8″ long and 2″ in diameter. An assistant offers a light. He pulls on it until smoke billows into the air, hindering our sight. He appears blind and yet seems to see every detail of each person in the room. We are in the presence of the living dead.

Manuel, once he is settled, begins to call out each person in the room. He tells them about their lives, he chastises them for their faults, he encourages them to do better, at some, he shows disdain and anger. I become worried as he hasn’t called me out yet. He has not made eye contact with me. Perhaps, he has nothing to say to me… but then he turns to me, without any type of expression on his face, and I know he’s looking at me, though his eyes seem blind.

I don’t remember what he said. I didn’t… couldn’t record him. I was paralyzed. I heard the words but couldn’t “hear” them. Even now, when I let myself go, I can remember the gentleness in which my heart was revealed. It was no use to try to obscure secrets buried just under the surface. He called them out… one by one. I remember the rumble, the powerful sounds coming from his throat, his mouth, that caused me to tremble and the tears that came unbidden. Then, his voice became clear like an instructors, “get a black rooster and after 30 days, bring it to me.”

What happened after that, I don’t know, but all I could think was, “where do I get a black rooster”. I knew without a doubt that I was going to do what he asked. I stepped out of the back room behind the curtain, into the sunlit shop. It felt like I had left one world and entered another. I felt slightly disoriented. Charles came behind and others in the shop gathered around him. He was not limping. Amidst the chatter, I made my way to the counter and asked the man standing there where I could find a live black rooster, as if I was asking a clerk at the drug store where to find the dandruff shampoo. Without hesitation, like he got this question all the time, he wrote down an address. I took it.

The bright LA sun was still shining. “I might as well go pick up this chicken while I’m out here”, I thought. Like that wasn’t weird enough, I did it. I found the address in a part of LA I’d never been before. There were blocks of warehouses and delivery trucks. I pulled over in front of a building and parked. Like I knew what I was doing, I entered a large dim and dust filled warehouse. There were cages of poultry of every kind. A man approached me and asked in Spanish, ¿”que quiere”? Luckily, I speak Spanish. Timidly, I asked for a black rooster.

Without hesitation, and within a couple of minutes, the man handed me a cardboard box with a young black rooster in it. I paid a small price and took the box out to my car and set it in my back seat like I did this everyday.

At the time, I was a graduate student at UCLA in the fields of folklore and mythology and my focus was Cuban spirituality. I would be writing about my experiences for my thesis. But this was not my 1st rodeo. I had lived with a Santero. I won’t go into my life with him now since I have written about it in other blog posts but suffice it to say, this was not new to me. Animal sacrifice was a natural part of this religion and I knew what I was in for. I knew the destiny of this black rooster.

I was living in Santa Monica, just blocks from the ocean, in a small garage conversion. I took the box out of my back seat and took it in to my small apartment setting the box down in my kitchen. The rooster was quiet and calm. It didn’t make a sound and it didn’t make a sound for the entire month that it lived in my kitchen. Perhaps, he knew his destiny, as well. Perhaps, he felt honored to be a part of this sacrifice.

Over the next 30 or so days, I fed the rooster and I talked to him and cared for him in every way. I was growing attached and began to feel bad for how his life would end. He would look up at me out of the bottom of the box with one eye and his head cocked as if to say, “don’t worry. I know what’s going on”.

After 30 days, I once again put the box with the black rooster in the back seat of my car and headed for Charlie’s botanica.

I don’t know if Charlie had written down on a calendar or in his ritual book that in 30 days I would be coming back but he didn’t seem at all surprised when I walked in the door. Maybe this was a regular occurrence and he knew exactly what was coming in the door. One of the people behind the counter took my box from me and headed through the curtain to the back room. The rooster remained silent.

Just as before, people had gathered in the botanica and had slowly drifted into the back room to sit in a circle to wait for Charlie to arrive as Manuel. Just as before, Charlie arrived. He addressed each and everyone in the circle, just as before. I grew impatient. I looked around for the box but didn’t see it.

Finally, in what seemed like hours, Manuel departed and Charlie sat there in front of us. Slowly, much slower than what I wanted, everyone moved in to the botanica to chat, perhaps to buy things that Charlie had suggested for ritual. Charlie motioned for me to stay seated and he left to say goodbye to the others.

A short middle aged man came to me and motioned for me to follow him through some curtains into a larger room behind the room where we gathered. I don’t remember a lot about this room except that it was more brightly lit and had the air of a kitchen with a sink with running water and tiled floors and I don’t remember what else because, of course, I was getting nervous. I felt cold. I felt a chill run down my spine as I stood there.Where was my rooster?

Charlie came in but didn’t look at me. He was prepared and he was going to do what he was prepared to do. This is what I remember… that I stripped to my underwear. Charlie approached me holding a large knife and my black rooster by its feet. My rooster didn’t make a peep. It hung there as though dead but its eyes were darting about. I was getting colder and began to shake.

Charlie held the rooster by its feet while he rubbed the live rooster all over my body from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. He was speaking but I didn’t understand what he said. He wasn’t speaking in English nor was he speaking in Spanish. When he was done with me, swiftly, with one slash, Charlie cut off the rooster’s head. The rooster bled into a cauldron where its head had landed, still with no objection.

It was clean and swift. The other man said that I could put my clothes back on and Charlie walked out of the room after he placed the rooster back in my box in a bag. I had previously received instruction that after the ritual I would take the rooster’s body to a graveyard and leave it there. I had looked up the address I was given and was prepared to leave the sacrifice among the dead.

After this, I didn’t see Charlie again until my next visit to the botanica. I had heard from other Santeros that after these kind of rituals there is a kind of exhaustion that takes place and I suppose that Charlie had gone to rest.

I guess there’s a certain kind of familiarity among law enforcement and cemetery personnel, because it was explained to me that finding dead roosters or other kinds of accoutrement in graveyards was not so strangely rare. But I was warned to be discreet. There were certain graveyards that were more tolerant.

I arrived at the graveyard sitting on a hill. It was late afternoon and the sun was bright but low in the sky. I walked among the gravestones and thought about what I had just experienced. I wanted this time to be personal and to be meaningful. As I mentioned before, I had experienced many things living among the Cubans but this was the first time I had been the center of this ritual.

I left the rooster next to a gravestone that was the oldest that I could find. I thanked him for what he had sacrificed for me. I walked slowly back to my car enjoying the sunshine and the heat. My body still felt cold. I drove through LA towards the beach and my home away from home.

Though I remember a great deal about this, still much of it is from my memory. Since I didn’t write down the details after they happened, all I have is my memory.

Though this story may seem strange and gruesome to you, my readers, to me these are, yes strange and extraordinary but they make up the person that I am today and I am grateful for that.

I realize that this story of mine leaves a lot that is not explained, But there’s more writing to be done and there are previous blog posts that go into some detail about living with a Santero and among the many Cubans that I met in the late 1990s.

This post is not intended to be instructional or specifically educational but it is true. Truer than true.

Held in Liminal Space

Portland remembering

This morning’s weather reminds me of when I was younger. It shows just how Portland I am.

It’s grey everywhere except for the explosion of some small Spring flowers. It’s cold. It’s raining but not pouring but it’s constant.

The wind is blowing. It’s blowing hard enough that I can hear the bells hanging on the porch.

The trees are still barren with just small buds of green showing. The exceptions are the Magnolia and Tulip trees that have full blooms, now drooping and dripping. The Japanese quince, stiff and thorny, is showing pink.

I walked the dog and I was reluctant to come back into the house. But Yum Yum was wet (her least favourite state) and ready for her treats.

Now, I’m sitting in my room and the rain is tapping on the windows. The big and old trees are swaying slightly against the wind.

I can hear the heater motor and see the fake fire inside my electric stove. Somehow warming.

The cat is sleeping on my bed so there’s no reason to make it up. She has made beautiful swirls in the blankets.

It’s very dim in my room and I don’t want to turn on any lights. I like this gloom and deep shadowed corners that are inviting and welcoming.

I think I will have a cup of tea and a little bit of dark chocolate and slices of the orange sitting in a ramen bowl.

I don’t miss the invasion of the bright rays of the sun that is hiding behind the charcoal clouds as they scud by, pushed along by the wind. There is a brightness in the far distant horizon where the clouds have thinned.

I might even doze a bit today. The gentle pitter and the patter of the rain are the perfect lyric and rhythm that can enduce slumber for any troubled mind.

I’m held in the arms of Portland weather and memories. Let the world go by. I’m not interested.

The Old Wringer Washer

Mom did laundry in an old wringer washing machine all the time I was growing up. She used a crooked stick to take the clean laundry out of the tub to push the clothes into the wringer.

Once clean, she hung our clothes out to dry. In the winter, she hung them to dry in the basement next to the giant oil furnace that had arms like a giant spider that led to every vent in the house.

Mom never asked for help with the laundry. Do you think that the memories of when she was a kid, Uncle John got his arm stuck in the wringer and tore his forearm skin clean off, kept her from wanting us to help?

Once I was in high school, a Fred Meyers was built with an attached laundro-mat a few blocks from home. Then, and only then, did she ask for help with the laundry.

She never had a washer and dryer until her and Dad sold the house and moved to an apartment complex in Beaverton in the 70s. Even then, it wan’t her washer and dryer.

After Dad died and she retired, she moved in with us when she turned 62. The first thing she bought was a brand new Sears & Roebuck washer and dryer.

Mom lived with me until she passed away at 89 years old and I never did another load of clothes until she passed away.

Small Gifts

Too many times I’ve brought you dust,

Empty shells and things that rust.

You’ve turned these small gifts into gold,

Something warm from something cold.

Paper, metal, cloth and clay,

Bits of earth, broken shards,

A hundred stones turned into stars.

No one’s heart holds half as much,

As little bits of this and such.

Jeff Died. Heartbreak or Suicide.

A TRAIN OF THOUGHTS RUN THROUGH MY BRAIN

A friend of mine, Jeff, was found dead in his apartment. He worked for me for many years. I don’t know any details yet and I’m not sure that I will. He was totally depressed after retirement. He had at least a million dollars saved and a huge retirement package.

Jeff was forced to retire after working at OHSU for more than 40 years. He didn’t have any health issues and so I don’t know the cause of death. He might have taken his own life but I don’t know that. I will really miss hearing from him.

Jeff and I were friends for more than 20 years and he worked for me for at least 10 of those years. We became quite close and he told me a lot about himself, his family and his life. I knew him before he went through rehab for drinking and probably other drugs and I knew him after he got through rehab. I knew he was depressed and that he didn’t really want to go on living once he was forced into retirement but I didn’t think he would take his own life but I don’t know. Unless his friend Shirley contacts me to tell me what she knows, I may never know what happened.

I spent the day he died on the phone with people who knew Jeff and wanted to console me. My son came over and we had dinner together and before that he and my daughter went out for a hike in the snow.

I went upstairs and ate some Ginger snaps and drank a cup of tea and watched something on Netflix or YouTube. It’s hard for me to keep my mind off of what happened to Jeff. I want to know how he died. I want to know if there’s going to be an obituary… whether there’s going to be a memorial service. I’m just filled with questions. He didn’t have any family until he found some cousins some years back. His mom had passed away and he never knew his dad. I want to know who’s handling taking care of his body and his burial. Hopefully he had directives and plans for all of that. I’m just at a loss.

I talked to his friend Shirley for about an hour that night. She doesn’t know what he died from but he was in bed when she found him and he was already cold. He had lost so much weight and he was a tall bean pole anyway. He was so skinny he couldn’t keep his pants up. She had been taking him brunch and dinner everyday because she was worried about him. The day he died she had taken breakfast over. He sat in his chair. When she went back that evening with food, he was still sitting in his chair with the breakfast plate in his lap, only partially eaten. After he ate what she brought for dinner, she saw that he climbed into bed. The next day when she took a new breakfast, she found him dead.

She didn’t know the cause of death, but she’s calling the coroner’s office today. My friend Judith, who also knew Jeff, said he died of a broken heart. That might be. He was so hopeless and lonely. He really wanted a female companion and he did not want to retire.

He had FB friends but other than Shirley and James, he didn’t see anyone. He had, in the last years, found family and was so thrilled. He had photos, and histories… they were quite well off. He found out who his father was and found his half brother. His half brother is coming from California to settle Jeff’s affairs. If family members are his beneficiaries, they’re going to inherit quite a fortune.

The cousins I contacted are in shock. I also contacted his oldest friend… since childhood, and he’s really shocked, too.

Shirley doesn’t believe he would take his own life. She’s known him longer than I have, so I tend to believe her. No blood, no vomit, no pained look on his face or uncomfortable posture. It was as though he just passed over.

I hope his brother arranges some kind of get together.

I hope I learn more. If his brother doesn’t arrange to clear out his apartment, I’m going to go over and help Shirley do it.

I tend to believe that I will never find out the real cause of his death, that thought is good enough for me. He was miserable and no matter what I said to him it didn’t change how he felt. Jeff loved food. For him not to be eating meant a lot. Maybe he just let go.

You and I both know that we can’t control another person’s life if they don’t want to live. It’s really their own personal choice and we have no say in it no matter how much we love them. We have to let each person that we love walk their own path without our interference. But we, who are Left Behind in these circumstances, suffer a great deal of loss and pain. Jeff now is out of pain; he’s out of misery.

It seems like he had been to the doctor but wasn’t going back. He was having back pain. He really didn’t see any reason to go on; he had no purpose in life, he thought. He was lonely and miserable and had obviously started drinking again after years and years of abstinence. Jeff was done. He wanted to step off and he did.

For some reason I decided I would go over and help Shirley clean the apartment. Jeff’s brother has come and gone. He took what he wanted. I don’t know what he took since this is the first time I’ve been in his house. All of the furniture is still there. Nothing worth saving really. The books are mainly packed up. I gathered up all the DVDs, CDs, videos. His old friend, Shirley, is cleaning his kitchen, bathroom, and getting rid of his clothes. His electronic devices are still there, nothing worth much. I spent all my time today gathering papers from every drawer, nooks, crannies and shelves, in every room. I’ll spend tomorrow sorting. I don’t have any more heavy things to lift, thank goodness. There is one small table I want… well, two, but I’ll check with Shirley. I don’t really have any right to them. I’m just doing this to honor Jeff. He was one of the kindest men I ever knew. He was wild in his youth, but always kind and a loyal friend. He was my best employee. Really brilliant. It’s so sad he had only found his family in recent years. I just want to help preserve something of him.

He had a nice home. Books, entertainment, money but even with friends and new found family, it wasn’t enough to make life worthwhile without work. I’ve never been depressed so I don’t understand it.

He obviously had kidney problems because they don’t just fail suddenly but he never said a word. Maybe I’ll find evidence of it in his papers. Funny, he was a wonderful archives assistant, yet his own papers are in total disarray. His place is beyond dirty. He could have easily hired a house keeper. He ate very well. He loved food. Good old fashioned American fare. But, once forced to retire, he lapsed into drinking again. Dammit!

When I got home from Jeff’s. I took a bath using a CBD bath bomb. That was so relaxing. I have another day over at Jeff’s to be done with not only his paperwork but boxing up his books and throwing away a ton of paperwork, knick knacks, clothes and the like.

There’s no one who gives a damn but me and Shirley. Today, Shirley stayed and helped haul stuff out to the dumpster. I have gathered up at least 2 boxes of things to send to his family. I’ll have a large box of his writings. I actually don’t know what to do with them. The boxes will go to Powell”s bookstore or to the Goodwill or the management co. will deal with them. There is a box full of land deeds from his family. I wonder if they still own all this land and just don’t know about it. I’m going to try to find out who to send them to tonight.

Nobody is here who cares.

Shirley is my age and a long time alcoholic. But more importantly, she’s a Blood/Blackfeet Indian. She’s been married to a white man for 23 years who’s been in love with a black woman for the last 5 or 6 years. She’s full of tales of abuse and fighting, of arguing, of jealousy and the cops coming to the house. Funny though, I like her as long as she doesn’t say anything about trump. How can a Canadian-American Indian say anything good about trump. The only thing I can figure out is that her husband is a racist/ redneck and so she’s getting her political views from him.

She’s a tiny, skinny woman and a hard worker and strong. She’s been married 5 times but only has one, gigantic, son who is 32 and a daughter. She’s toothless but has a good figure and I think at one time was probably quite attractive. She has bronze skin and deep brown eyes and a typical Indian nose… long, slightly hooked and wide, on a round face with high cheekbones and with long black hair that she dyes. She’s letting it grow out and the white is shockingly white. She tells of Indian wisdom and yet she allows herself to be humiliated. She says she is stuck in this relationship. Her husband is one of Jeff’s oldest friends and Jeff was the best man at their wedding. She came to love Jeff as a brother and cared for him, having him over for all holidays, sending him home with food for him to cook or with leftovers every week, taking him shopping. James and Shirley were companions to Jeff through rehab but now everybody drinks and smokes. She got a call from James twice while we were working and he wanted her to take his stimulus check and go out and buy whiskey and beer.

She told me the story of a time that he burned her with chile by throwing it on her off the stove and all over the couch. Now James has had a stroke and he can’t walk and he can’t hurt her anymore and the black woman doesn’t want him. Shirley wants him though, at least she needs him. Yesterday, I had to deliver Jeff’s keys to her house. Shirley wasn’t home but James was laying on the couch yelling at me to open the door. At 1st I didn’t hear him and so he yelled forcefully to open the door. Their house is cozy. They have nice things.

Shirley has worked hard all of her life. She got fired just recently though because her company found out she had voted for trump, that’s what she says. They said it was ethical for them to fire her. Between James and Shirley’s social security and maybe retirement they probably have enough to live on without Shirley working. She could put James in a nursing home and she could move back to the reservation where she has family. She might be happier there but she wants to stay close to her son Calvin even though her daughter lives on the reservation.

It’s not funny how we get stuck in situations that are not good for us and yet we stay. I wish Shirley all of the best. I think I might miss seeing her. I couldn’t really socialize with her at home, but perhaps I could meet her for coffee some times. She’s a very generous person. Perhaps if she moved back to the reservation she could see how trump is a bastard.

I’m happy. I hope you’re happy too. I have a sense of accomplishment for working over at Jeff’s even though it was not my responsibility. I feel good that I was able to do something for him even though he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what happens to his material belongings now that he has passed on to something, somewhere, we know not where or what or how. For now his family will have a sense of who Jeff was though they barely knew him. What a terrible father he had not to let his other kids know about their brother. He was all alone for many years. He was the offspring of an affair… but unwanted. That’s very sad.

Bye, my friend.