Reflections on the Loss of my Sister

She died 51 days ago; I lost her 50 years ago when our mother forced her to move to Seattle to give a baby up for adoption that our mother did not want.  My sister revoked the adoption papers, with the help of a compassionate social worker, and kept Stan, who is now a 50 year old property manager in Seattle.  He is the oldest of her four sons, my nephews.


This week I talked with a cardiologist and a Cardiology nurse.  Both spoke to me of tobacco as a drug.  I know this, but I have not known it.  Both doctor and nurse told me there are no rehab or detox centers for coming off this drug.  So it is a drug, but the only available hospitalization is when the drug is taking your life.


 I go to programs to get support as a member or friend of addicted or troubled personalities but none for smokers or ex-smokers.  So I used to argue with my sister about her smoking, that or listened so long she would ask if I was still there.  And when I was frustrated, I would say to myself  I just can't communicate with her and, rather than get angry with her, I would just stop calling for a while until warm feelings returned and the cycle of arguing/listening/detachment would start all over.  I did this with my mother because her drinking bothered me but I stayed away the last 4 years of her life. 


Anyway I made of all with my sister this some kind of personality thing or something about one of us "getting into recovery" and the other not.  I just didn't get it; I was trying to talk to someone on drugs--all the drugs in cigarettes.  Then when she stopped smoking (remember no detoxes) sucking Commit lozenges all day for months I am told, I was left with an angry, negative interlocutor.


Although I wrote her a letter of apology for my coming and going (and she always took me back), it was too little, too late.  Lots of anger and discomfort was projected on me.  After she died, people carry on her battle against me.  I am feeling sad and wanting to reminisce and I reach out to family and I hear and feel the anger.  I stopped.  I have my own grieving process.  I am working to honor and commemorate her in the institutions that mattered the most to her: the Jewish Family Service of Spokane Valley, Temple Beth Shalom, and the Good Samaritan Society in Spokane.  Yesterday I spoke with Bill at Plantland.  We are working on planting a tree in her honor in the courtyard of Dayspring, the unit for Alzheimer and dementia patients for whom she cared very deeply.  On the tree there will be a plaque stating the years of her service at Good Sam's.  More will come to be in both feelings and actions.

letter to Arlene

Dear Arlene,

I am sorry you died July 3, 2011.  I want to thank you for interceding on my behalf and getting my stuffed animal back from our mother.  I want to also thank you for making me sit at the little desk, which I now have, and do my homework.  I still do my homework, yesterday researching programs outside of English that teach writing and I found an article from the writing program director at Cornell, Katherine Gottschalk, that cited the book I published in 2001.  To think it all began at that little mahogany desk about 60 years ago.  You were the teacher and I was the student.  And I went on to become a college professor and you a loving caregiver in a nursing home.  Soon each of three shifts will be holding a pizza party in your honor.

Love
Karen

Cat Projections

So we have this cat, Big Red Boy, the last of three who moved in not long after we did, not from a shelter but from the street.  Not many out there now as coyotes have taken care of the surplus.  So last night I am reading an essay on People's Park and public space for this Writing Culture class I am about to teach for the first time, and I hear meowing right outside the window.  Usually when Red wants to come in, he "rings the doorbell." (We have replaced the shingles to the lower right of the front door several times.)  This time he is standing facing the street in the middle of the yard howling.  I call him in and kiss, cuddle, and coo, "What's wrong?  Tell Mommy."  Claudine comes in and we speculate.  C thinks it was the previous night's full moon.  I think there is a young lady in heat and he knows it but due to castration, he can do nothing about it.  I put him on the floor and he wants out.  He goes.  I watch as he goes right back to the previous spot and begins tossing a dead mouse in the air.  So the howling was an audio text to the neighborhood proclaiming his victory?

Caring for the Whole Student: understanding reviewer feedback

I have been working on a book manuscript for over 10 years about a writing pedagogy of care.  Since graduate school (PHd in English 1998) readers of my more academic writing have asked me to do more than describe people and situations and narrate tales, but to analyze and draw out the points I want to make.  I have always resisted this criticism as infusing my writing with a didacticism I do not want.  I have been defensive  thinking either they just don't understand ethnographic writing or they are resisting the incurrence of creative nonfiction into the academy.

Recently dropped by a publisher I had hopes for because of an upcoming change of editors, I began drafting a new book proposal with their reviewers criticism in mind--the work needs more analytic foci.  This publisher asks that you state what the purpose of each chapter is.  I began rewriting the old annotated table of contents with this question in mind.  I also began thinking of something I hear a lot in the 12-step recovery movement: we keep principles over personalities.  Suddenly I am doing it--framing the chapter summaries with statements of purpose, assured that this approach does not preclude the story telling that follows in the actual chapters.  I know now how to be an analytic raconteur and I like it.

Gratitude list for 8/10/11

Gratitude List 8/10/11

Dear G-d,

I am grateful:

1)   that I accept this jet-lag sleep pattern for today (awake at 2)

2)   for a conversation with Suki , the wife of my mother’s cousin, who is 91 and lives in “West Palm” and mentally sharp, who tells me things about my ancestors and who said yesterday it was too bad I didn’t live closer as she would take me out to lunch once and a while

3)   for a conversation with the administrator of the synagogue my sister applied to join as she was dying (Temple Beth Shalom in Spokane WA) and my decision to buy 2 plaques in her honor.  The yahrzeit plaque will light each year on the anniversary of her death and special prayers will be said for her.  The inscription I chose for her plaque on the tree of life is, “To my sister Arlene, a loving caregiver.  Love, Karen 2011.”

4)   That this conversation was very emotional and I felt myself making a much deeper amend than the one in the letter I sent in March

5)   That my investing account is close to depletion but not before taking advantage of the falling market to re-purchase stock in a Chinese bank I learned of from my father only 13 cents above its bottom before it started back up

6)   That I watched in horror during a video chat as someone drank a glass of this hideously green liquid but within an hour I decided to join the “green smoothie revolution”

7)   That I moved forward in the revised book proposal yesterday in a relaxed way more free from the negative stranglehold of the last reviewers (well their emphasis was criticism with a lack of appreciation for the creative nonfiction) yet utilizing their valid points

8)    that I moved forward in preparing to teach the new course in writing culture

9)    that I took time to grieve

10)                   that after a few difficult phone calls with “Reservations” at the AMC, I booked an agreed upon 3-day weekend for C and me at the Highland Lodge in Crawford Notch, NH, our favorite place—during fall foliage

11)                   For Your firm support always