My daughter Kathie's reaction to the post below:
Other friends I will want to thank: my patient bridge partners Shirley G., Marcia V., Diane G.,
and sometimes with a little luck, Bill W himself. You were a sweetheart, Bill, to make so much ado about my flying a Twin Comanche on my 90th birthday.
I'll insert here an update to 2014, when I met Patti Knowles, a lively friend and frequent bridge partner here at my new residence in Hingham, Linden Ponds. Patti won't allow me to be lazy about coming events and outings; she even conducts me to the area where residents sign up for these trips and says, "Come on! Sign your name! It'll be fun!"
Then there's Margo Bendery, our Vonnie's favorite childhood pal. When she was grown, she tried to re-connect with Vonnie, only to learn from Kathie that she had died in an automobile accident. Since then, Margo has become a friend and the artist for Kathie's blog. We never knew she had this talent. Her e-mails are filled with the whimsy and charm.of a first-class writer. Years ago, in love with my mother's poems, Margo searched her name and found another blogger. As a youngster, Paige had read Ernestine's The Laughing Willow in a children's magazine, saved it through the years, and wondered bloggily if she could publish it. I happily authorized her to do so; since then dozens of Mom's fanciful poems have appeared in http://rhapsodyenbleuclair.blogspot.com.
Never to be forgotten is Naomi McBride. She used to take care of our Florida condominium, promises God will take care of me, and thanks me a million and a million times for the small monthly stipend she receives.
I will be sending a loving goodbye to beautiful-inside-and-out Margie Wollam, a kind follower of this blog and my idea of a perfect woman. Also a perfect woman is my niece Linda, who years ago did me the honor of asking me to be her Other Mother. I couldn't ask for a dearer Other Daughter.
Grammarians say you can't use the term "most perfect," but that's what my darling Kathie is, living her life in a wheelchair to the fullest but never too busy to call her mother every blessed night at 7:00 PM. Visitors to my blog from the U S (numbering over 60,000 according to current stats), please do yourselves a favor and stop by Kathie's brilliant blog, http://engagingpeace.com
I once said to her devoted husband Frank, "What would we do without you?" His response, "What would I do without Kathie?" She found the right man for her second husband at Parents Without Partners.
Many thanks and much love will go to older son Ted, who has always been there for me whenever I needed help of any kind. He's approaching seventy-one, and I hope he and I will both live to see his riveting article, "Men in Danger," published in National Fisherman (accepted in October, 2012).
To my dearly beloved younger son I will say, as Frank did concerning Kathie, "What would I have done without you?" Again and again Tim has come to my rescue whenever something went wrong with my computer. Even when he went out on a limb and started his own company, Boston Sword and Tuna, he managed to find time to keep me in the blogging business--Tears and Laughter was originally his idea. Which reminds me of dramaturgist Michael Mitchell, who not only helped Kathie and me with "Rescuing the Old Buzzard" but also echoed Tim's suggestion: "Did you ever think of starting a blog?" Excerpt from an e-mail to Michael:
Sometimes an idea for what to publish next is triggered by something I’m currently working on, such as Moppet not behaving the least bit fearfully on our flight back to Boston after Kathie’s stay in Arizona's Williams Hospital. On the other hand, our pet was very nervous indeed about flying after she was flung out of our plane when it crashed at Oak Bluff’s Airport. I got a kick out of seeing Moppet’s hangdog slouch, as
the pilot was doing a pre-flight check.
Clearly she was saying to her mistress, “Is this flight necessary?”
Which seems like a fitting question for this post. Yes, unless Fate intervenes with other plans, I believe I'll take this necessary flight when the time comes..
My heartfelt love to my precious children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter. . . .
Flight
Like arms of heedful strangers, lent
with kindly grace.
Sleep, sweet Sleep, take me with you this one time
(8-24-13 bbm)
Oh dear. It does worry me
to think of you thinking about this issue, but I remind myself that you are a
writer and that you want to write about everything that is important to
you. I finished A Man of Parts last night and H..G. also needed to just
keep writing as he faced into the future as an aging man with declining health.
I also understand well that urge
not to be a burden to anyone; I worry about such things myself.
I do hope for both of us that
our exits are way off in the future and that we will be adequately healthy and
mobile till then.
Love,
kk
February 28, 2013
Being of sound mind, I plan one day to re-schedule this post for publication the morning after I go to sleep forever. The reasons I will be making my exit? At ninety-one (or older, as the case may be), I cannot and will not face a future in a nursing home, slumped over in a wheelchair like all the other old ladies, a painful object for my children to visit dutifully. My mobility currently is fair, but I need a cane, one of those four-pronged affairs, for local errands or trips to Duplicate Bridge games. The games are directed by my buddy Bill W, to whom I will send a *K* and a fond farewell. Another *K* to thoughtful friend and neighbor Ardis, my chauffeur to the Marshfield game in her elegant 2008 red Prius.February 28, 2013
Other friends I will want to thank: my patient bridge partners Shirley G., Marcia V., Diane G.,
and sometimes with a little luck, Bill W himself. You were a sweetheart, Bill, to make so much ado about my flying a Twin Comanche on my 90th birthday.
I'll insert here an update to 2014, when I met Patti Knowles, a lively friend and frequent bridge partner here at my new residence in Hingham, Linden Ponds. Patti won't allow me to be lazy about coming events and outings; she even conducts me to the area where residents sign up for these trips and says, "Come on! Sign your name! It'll be fun!"
Then there's Margo Bendery, our Vonnie's favorite childhood pal. When she was grown, she tried to re-connect with Vonnie, only to learn from Kathie that she had died in an automobile accident. Since then, Margo has become a friend and the artist for Kathie's blog. We never knew she had this talent. Her e-mails are filled with the whimsy and charm.of a first-class writer. Years ago, in love with my mother's poems, Margo searched her name and found another blogger. As a youngster, Paige had read Ernestine's The Laughing Willow in a children's magazine, saved it through the years, and wondered bloggily if she could publish it. I happily authorized her to do so; since then dozens of Mom's fanciful poems have appeared in http://rhapsodyenbleuclair.blogspot.com.
Never to be forgotten is Naomi McBride. She used to take care of our Florida condominium, promises God will take care of me, and thanks me a million and a million times for the small monthly stipend she receives.
I will be sending a loving goodbye to beautiful-inside-and-out Margie Wollam, a kind follower of this blog and my idea of a perfect woman. Also a perfect woman is my niece Linda, who years ago did me the honor of asking me to be her Other Mother. I couldn't ask for a dearer Other Daughter.
Grammarians say you can't use the term "most perfect," but that's what my darling Kathie is, living her life in a wheelchair to the fullest but never too busy to call her mother every blessed night at 7:00 PM. Visitors to my blog from the U S (numbering over 60,000 according to current stats), please do yourselves a favor and stop by Kathie's brilliant blog, http://engagingpeace.com
I once said to her devoted husband Frank, "What would we do without you?" His response, "What would I do without Kathie?" She found the right man for her second husband at Parents Without Partners.
Many thanks and much love will go to older son Ted, who has always been there for me whenever I needed help of any kind. He's approaching seventy-one, and I hope he and I will both live to see his riveting article, "Men in Danger," published in National Fisherman (accepted in October, 2012).
To my dearly beloved younger son I will say, as Frank did concerning Kathie, "What would I have done without you?" Again and again Tim has come to my rescue whenever something went wrong with my computer. Even when he went out on a limb and started his own company, Boston Sword and Tuna, he managed to find time to keep me in the blogging business--Tears and Laughter was originally his idea. Which reminds me of dramaturgist Michael Mitchell, who not only helped Kathie and me with "Rescuing the Old Buzzard" but also echoed Tim's suggestion: "Did you ever think of starting a blog?" Excerpt from an e-mail to Michael:
Sometimes an idea for what to publish next is triggered by something I’m currently working on, such as Moppet not behaving the least bit fearfully on our flight back to Boston after Kathie’s stay in Arizona's Williams Hospital. On the other hand, our pet was very nervous indeed about flying after she was flung out of our plane when it crashed at Oak Bluff’s Airport. I got a kick out of seeing Moppet’s hangdog slouch, as
Which seems like a fitting question for this post. Yes, unless Fate intervenes with other plans, I believe I'll take this necessary flight when the time comes..
My heartfelt love to my precious children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter. . . .
Flight
A
beauty beyond all believing
Has
startled my eyes:
The
sight of a falling star cleaving
The
slumbering skies.
A
flash! Then the heavens absorb it.
I
sigh in the night,
And
think of my life's fettered orbit --
And
the wonder of flight!
by Ernestine Cobern Beyer
SONG TO A SIREN
Sleep, sweet Sleep, pray stay with me
this night.
I beg you,, do not slip away,
Leaving me to face another day
Where failing eyesight can’t be held at bay
And fear of falling hovers like a plague.
Making me long for your embrace
I beg you,, do not slip away,
Leaving me to face another day
Where failing eyesight can’t be held at bay
And fear of falling hovers like a plague.
Making me long for your embrace
Sleep, sweet Sleep, take me with you this one time
And help me end this tiresome life and
rhyme.
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