The Real Miss Pearl

The real Miss Pearl, my neighbor's sweet Lab is no more. After a brain injury with obvious presence of pain it was decided that it was best for Miss Pearl to pass on. An exceptional vet came to the home to assure a smooth transition.

 

Only a few weeks ago in March, Miss Pearl came to the gate to greet us, despite her trouble in getting up. Now, I miss Miss Pearl's barking at passersby in hopes of garnering some attention.

When I got my very first dog, my Isabella-girl, despite all the many fears I had of sharing my home with a dog, another living, breathing and feeling being, despite my many anxieties of taking care of another creature, a creation of god-dess, nothing prepared me for the sadness of loosing so many sweet canine buddies of ours like Bashty, Heidi, Ray to name only a few.  I am comforted by the knowledge that Miss Pearl, the Real Miss Pearl, had a very good life, filled with love, long walks and plenty of attention.

Dear Joe

Today April 26th, it would have been Joe's birthday. 

While he is gone, dear Joe is not forgotten.

I met Joe when I was 18 years old, back from an almost one year long stint as an Au-Pair girl in the french speaking part of Switzerland. I got my life back on track after an earlier fiasco, got serious and got a position in a lawyer's office, vaguely wanting to do good and meaningful work. (Gosh, was I naive!) On my lunch break, I would take strolls down the lake side and there I met Joe selling, it was the early seventies, his hand crafted wire jewelry. I loved his attitude, decidedly non-commercial. He would attempt to discourage his potential buyers from acquiring one more useless item, even if it was his and would go on about consumerism and such favorites of the sixties, and seventies, not just in Switzerland. He did move on and made more useful items, such as the Chilets depicted above, the epitome as he said of his craft. Such pieces of wearable art, long lasting, but not forever, as he would  readily point out, hand dyed and - crafted in every single aspect that included the search of materials, at first found as throw-aways on the streets and later from second hand stores. Joe was an artist through and through, a man with a highly developed sensitivity. In his youth he was an actor and late in his life he returned back to his first love, painting. On my last visit I found his home filled with primed canvases stacked and stored neatly all around his living room, ready for use any time he would fancy. His room mate was a cat he adored, his life was simple, sweet, and not without pain.

Dear Joe had given me a way out from the friction with my parents when he invited me to share his space while I was still in school and worked only part time at the law office. We have shared countless coffee breaks that included ruminations about life, god, art and friends. I miss my best buddy, his special spirit and not least his lovely creations! Is it coincidence that two of the most important men in my life share one birth day?

Pappi

Today, April 26, would have been my Dad's 87th birthday. 5 years ago I rushed to Zurich, my hometown, to my Dad's bed side, a month earlier as planned, and ended up staying at his side much of the following 3 months. While uncommunicative most of his life, he had asked me clearly to stay. So I did, and gave up my long anticipated first trip to Ghana, Africa. It was my privilege to support my Dad in his time of need and his last phase.

Let me tell you, Swiss public institutions for the elderly are a lot better then the one's, public ones, I know in my community in the United States. Still it was hard. I would observe my Dad in spasm, report it to the staff, and be met with disbelief and an outright wrong diagnosis. It took 3 weeks to finally get the main honcho to diagnose my Dad's intestinal spasms correctly and not attribute them to epileptic seizures and/or part of the Parkinson symptoms. Until then everybody simply did not pay enough attention to actually notice his pain and he was in a state, unable to express himself, maybe unwilling to cause trouble. It was my honor to be his spokes person for the last few weeks of his life.

He had trouble swallowing and excessive mucous was congesting him, so I asked to leave out the dairy products. You would think that the Swiss cooks never had heard of dairy! Still the soups had butter and the deserts had whipped cream, delicious, but not helpful. Only 2 days without and he breathed easier and felt a lot more comfortable. 

I asked to keep him more hydrated with herbal teas I would leave in a special thermos for him on  his bed side. I did not realize then at first that even offering tea costs! It took maybe a month, maybe longer before the staff actually started to use the thermos and his mouth showed less dryness. Hydration really is crucial to the functioning of the body and brain.

It got really rough when I had to decide on my Dad's treatment plan. As I had just talked to the attending doctor on her visit at his bed side, my Dad told me with great clarity that he wanted everything done to him. Meaning he did not want us to give up on him, but he did not understand the implications. Who am I to decide over life and death!

My Dad had this moments of lucidity, moments where out of character he would share things with me. Suddenly he mentioned his having fallen in love, heavily in love, he told me. That was it, no more, not a word. Was he thinking of my mom who had passed on suddenly a few years earlier? Somehow I suspect he was reminiscing of his youth, a time long before he would meet my Mom.

My Dad had upset me severely a few years earlier when he refused to take another trip and seemed to give no hoot about my Mom's desire to travel more, maybe visit me across the ocean. His selfish concerns and disregard of my Mom's longings upset me enough to confront him one day, on a rare occasion as the two of us were hanging in a coffee shop. So it really surprised me when he announced to me that it may be time for him to take another trip. He did not elaborate, just that cryptic statement that I believe was part of his acceptance of his dying process. My mom had dragged him all around the world to far away exotic places, ever since the late sixties. 

My Mom's glamor job for me would have been to play the part of a glorified waitress on an airplane, a Stewardess, to travel to far away places, but always to return home. (I did travel far, but never returned!) I found this image which must have been taken by my Dad, I assume, in Tunisia, on their first big vacation together, without me. (I stayed home alone, in 6th grade, a bit afraid of the dark at night, but not too much. With my best friend over, we would fry ourselves heavily spiced pieces of meat late at night, the extent to which I then took my unsupervised freedom.) 

For my planned trip to Accra I had bought my self my very first digital point and shoot camera, an Olympus, because I knew the brand from the collection of cameras my Dad had kept. His interest peaked as it occurred to me to show him my new gadget and this dying man came alive again for a few moments. This is the very first image I took with that new camera on his bedside while holding his hand. It now symbolizes a whole lot for me. Things like the intimacy of holding hands, of caring and sharing, but also holding on and fear, things both me and my Dad were plenty familiar with.

5 years ago on his last birthday, I had asked my Dad how old he thought he was and his response after long deliberation and not a little uncertainty was, maybe, just maybe 30 years old! This made me smile and made me think of how we depict ourselves and others often in the peak of our lives. My Mom too I believe envisioned herself rising from the dead, on resurrection day, as a young, vibrant woman. So this is my Dad, as a young man, maybe in his early twenties. He remains a mystery to me in so many ways as he had never been one to talk about himself, his feelings, his beliefs, his work or his past. I treasure the peace we found together at last.