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Si Existo Melius For

“It would be better if…”

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Today would have been my father’s 78th birthday. He died unexpectedly in May of 1993, at the relatively young age of 56. The cause was eventually determined to be an angina rupture.

I had a lot of trouble writing something about him. I strongly suspect that my mom’s health currently being in free-fall has something to do with that. So, I’ll just feature some photographs that I pilfered from my brother’s facebook page. (Sorry, Jim.)

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At his wedding in 1964.

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With his father in 1953.

My father was a mathematician to the core. His world was defined by absolutes. He wasn’t a patient man, and he wouldn’t suffer fools. He was formidably intelligent, and apparently a very stern – but fair – professor. Many of his students at SUNY Cortland actually feared him, especially those in the 100 level courses. Though as I understand it, math and science majors actually tried to get into his 300 and 400 level courses on computer science and advanced calculus.

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With mom, Memere, and my brother, in 1989.

He also had a very wry and ironic sense of humor. Sometimes his one liners would fly over people’s heads, but those who caught them usually chuckled. Or they groaned, because he was also a lethal punslinger.

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With his brother, and brother-in-law, 1980.

He and I had many differences over the years, especially near the end of his life. He was a troubled man in many ways, but he always wanted the best for my brother and I. He did everything in his power to make sure we had at least the same opportunities that he had, if not more. And, he was a good dad. He’s proving to be a surprisingly hard act to follow.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him or miss him.

Christmas Yet to Come

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Twelfth Night: the final night of the Christmas season, and the more or less official end of the holidays. So ends another Christmas season. And I strongly suspect that Christmas of 2015 will be radically different from any other Christmas to date.

If you’re read any of my other articles about this holiday season, then you probably know that our big holiday road trip was cut short. Truth be told, there has been a cloud over my head throughout this holiday season, and it’s been hard to deal with.

A few days before we left for our trip, my mother was admitted to MedStar Medical Center in Montgomery County, Maryland, with something they could only describe as “very serious.” We came close to cancelling our trip because of this, but she talked us out of that. She didn’t want us to miss this chance to see family and friends that we haven’t seen in a long time, just because she was cooped up in a hospital.

At the time I asked her, flat out, if the Grim Reaper was at her door. She said no, but she’s pretty sure he’s only a few blocks away. The problem is, I know my mother well enough that I could tell she was apprehensive, if not worried, and she was probably holding something back.

Half way through our trip, Mom asked me to come home. That pretty much told me everything I needed to know.

She has stage four cancer. The cancer started in her uterus area, and spread to other parts of the body. Of particular interest was some swelling against the heart, which was causing shortness of breath and fatigue. That’s what caught the attentions of the doctors, actually. I remember at Thanksgiving she was complaining about shortness of breath. Apparently that was this strange growth, and it was moving fast. Radiation has brought this particular issue under control, but the original cancer remains a problem.

In all likelihood, Christmas of 2014 will turn out to be her last.

And that is what has me in a funk. My mother has always been a strong willed and determined woman. Sometimes she was like a force of nature. She was widowed at a fairly young age, and watched several members of her family succumb to a variety of maladies over the years. But it looked like she had beaten the odds on that front. Roughly 18 months ago she sold her long time house in Homer, New York, and moved to Silver Spring, Maryland. She moved into a retirement community where she could be closer to her grandchildren, and the plan was that she would enjoy this relaxed, retirement lifestyle for several years.

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Mom with her four grandchildren.

Fate apparently had other plans. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease just over a year ago, so her ability to do a lot of things had been stunted. But she was managing, and the disease was being controlled. This cancer took us by surprise, though in hindsight the signs had been there for quite some time. We just didn’t recognize them for what they were.

She is now in the process of moving out of the retirement community, and into a nursing home. In her case, the nursing home will be serving as a hospice. Instead of several years, she only has a few months. My brother, largely out of necessity, has been handling most of the logistics of this transition, and it’s weighing very heavily on him. The next steps will involve dealing with her apartment and her various belongings. That will probably involve getting a storage area; I can help him with that part, at least.

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Mom with her two boys, me (left) and my brother, James (right).

I suspect I’m projecting and/or deflecting, because this is proving very difficult to address. This will sound cliche, but mom has become a shadow of the woman she used to be, and it’s painful to see. The idea of life without my mother being somewhere in this world is a difficult one to consider. It’s one of those things that we all know is likely to happen, but when faced with the reality of it, it’s hard to truly fathom.

If there is a silver lining in this, she isn’t in any lasting pain, and she still seems to have most of her mental faculties. They are greatly slowed, but still present. At this point, all I can do do is hope and pray that these last few months will be peaceful and comfortable for her, and that when the Grim Reaper does finally arrive he has the decency to arrive while she’s sleeping. As for how these months will treat my brother and I, our wives and our children, is another story entirely.

Photo credits: Lisa and Richard Pugh.

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New Year’s Memories

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I’ve talked about Thanksgiving, and I’ve talked about Christmas. What can I say about New Year’s Day? That’s a tough call. Of the three holidays in the triumvirate we call the “Holiday Season,” New Year’s Day is the one that has the least meaning for me. I don’t dislike it, but I also don’t have many fond, lasting memories associated with it.

Over the years I’ve attended some great New Year’s parties. When I was growing up in Upstate New York, one of my father’s colleagues used to throw a huge party on New Year’s Day that lasted the whole day. It was a fairly formal affair for the adults, but all the kids would gather in the basement play area and have a great time. When I moved to Washington, DC, I attended a few First Night celebrations, which were great fun. And the Catholic Alumni Club managed to pull off a good party or two, when the conditions were right. And other years I would just hang out with friends and stuff myself with more junk food than you can imagine. But all of that has been fleeting.

Unfortunately, when it comes to New Year’s Day, what I remember most clearly are the bad things. Many news programs and services have “year in review” articles that tend to be recaps of whatever bad news transpired during the previous 364 days. Growing up, I remember my father going into a fit of melancholy whenever the bad news was revisited. Perhaps that rubbed off on me. On January first I often find myself thinking back on what I’ve done wrong, could have done better, or failed to do entirely, during the previous year. Even when I was at a party and having a grand time watching that ball drop, some small part of me was always thinking back on the bad that is in the world.

So for me, New Year’s Day has never been a day of big celebration. Thanksgiving and Christmas were the days I think about how wonderful the world is, and how lucky or fortunate I am. New Year’s Day has long been the day I think about the things that are still wrong with this world, how much pain and suffering there is out there, and think about how far we still have to go.

So to everyone reading this, I hope that 2015 brings you good fortune. And let’s all try to make 2015 the year that we solve, or at least alleviate, some of this world’s pain.

At the very least, let’s make 2015 better than 2014.

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Arapaima Travelogue

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Operation Arapaima, continued.

Here is the day by day travelogue. Some days are omitted because nothing really big happened. Hey, some days you need to just kick back and relax.

Day 1: December 20, 2014
The first phase of this trip was to Durham, North Carolina. I have an uncle and aunt who live there, and I haven’t seen them in several years. We used this opportunity for a quick visit. As a bonus, one of their two sons was home this Christmas. This was the first time any of them met Caitlin or Michael in person. We spent the night in a rather nice hotel a short drive from their house.

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Tyrannosaurus Rex statue, Doswell, Virginia.

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Thomas, Michael, Joshua, Caitlin (being a goofball), Muri, and Lisa

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Thomas, Michael, Joshua, Muri, me, and Caitlin (still being a goofball)

Day 2: December 21, 2014
We left Durham around 9:00am, for our next stop of Evans, Georgia. Lisa has an aunt, uncle, and cousins who live there that she hasn’t seen for many years. This was another case of opportunity knocking, so we paid them a visit. We spent a few hours with them, and had dinner at a local restaurant, and generally had a good time. Caitlin was especially happy to have people close to her own age that she could hang with for a while. After this visit, we traveled an additional two hours to a suburb of Atlanta, where we had hotel reservations for the night. This particular piece of travel was very difficult, because it was pitch dark and raining most of the way. Still, we made it to our hotel just after midnight, and quickly crashed. This hotel was quite a contrast to the one we had in Durham, but we were too tired to care.

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Uncle Conrad, Caitlin, Chloe, Michael, Aubry, Aaron, and Aunt Pat.

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Aunt Pat, Uncle Conrad, Aubry (being a goofball), Donald, Connie, Chloe, and Aaron.

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Aunt Pat, Precious, Uncle Conrad, Lisa, Michael, Connie, Aubry, Caitlin, Chloe, Aaron, and me.

Day 3: December 22, 2014
We got a later start than we had planned, because after the previous night we decided that the extra sleep was a necessity. We left the Atlanta area around 10:00am (Eastern Time), and made a bee-line toward Louisiana. Fortunately, traffic was light and the weather was co-operative. We opted to spend the night in Atlanta so that the Atlanta rush hour traffic would all be behind us when we continued. Given the congestion on the other runner, this was a smart move on our part. The trip through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana was smooth and without incident. Well, it was without incident if you discount Michael’s little adventure in the restaurant where we stopped for lunch. Catching a toddler that doesn’t want to be caught can be quite a challenge! We reached Hammond, Louisiana, around 6:00pm (Central Time). The three day outbound drive was now complete.

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The Vedeckis Christmas Tree, 2014

Day 5: December 24, 2014
Christmas Eve included a traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner at the Vedeckis home. Sadly, it also included the loss of one of Michael’s special shoes during a last minute gift acquisition run, which was itself a complete and total failure.

Day 6: December 25, 2014, Christmas Day
A large gathering of Lisa’s extended family filled the Vedeckis house for several hours. Presents were opened, photographs and news were shared, and lots of food was consumed. It was one heck of a party!

Day 7: December 26, 2015
This was another low key day, though we were able to replace Michael’s missing shoes.

Day 8: December 27, 2015
The plan was to visit one of Lisa’s sisters, and allow our various children to play. However, this did not happen. In mid-afternoon I learned that I had to return to Northern Virginia.

We hastily packed and disembarked. None of the additional visits to family in Hammond took place, not did any intended visits to New Orleans or the surrounding area. Unfortunately, this is how life goes sometimes. No matter how well plans are laid or preparations made, if Fate and/or the Almighty has something else in mind, then the gig is up.

We drove straight through the night, and through one of the worst rainstorms I have ever experienced. We had originally planned to stop for the night at some point, but I wasn’t willing to wait. In this particular case, time was far too precious.

Day 9: December 28, 2015
We arrived home on the afternoon of December 28. We were able to make a quick stop at Mrs. Rowe’s restaurant in Stanuton, Virginia. However, we didn’t have a meal, which was the original plan. We picked up some frozen take-home food, and moved on. Still, the restaurant was busy, and the smell of Americana food was strong and enticing. I was pleased to see that this local restaurant was still going strong.

It was an overcast and dreary day in North Central Virginia. This brought Operation Arapaima to an abrupt, premature, and sombre conclusion.

The next major family trip will be next summer, to the Chicago area. Caitlin and I have already code named this trip “Operation Bullfrog.” Hopefully it will be more successful.

Final route:

Total distance: 2359.6 miles.