Tamara Unleashed

I didn’t intend to not blog for over a month. I am not sure I feel like it today but I want to reflect a bit before 2022. I have really enjoyed blogging – until December hit and I temporarily lost my voice. I was incensed by the Supreme Court case that looks like it truly could make meaningful access to abortions illegal in many states. I wanted to write about it and scream about it – but to what end? Adoption is not a solution for unplanned/unwanted pregnancies. Pregnancy can be lethal for a woman. Women can die in childbirth and bear severe consequences of pregnancy for the rest of their lives.

I watched the first season of Handmaid’s Tale in January after Donald Trump was elected and I feared we were heading in that direction. I couldn’t watch further seasons. I wonder what would happen if women simply stopped having vaginal intercourse unless they were trying to get pregnant?

If that was not enough to harsh the positive vibe I was feeling at the end of November, omicron came into our lives The first case in the US was reported on December 1st and now it represents about 70% of US cases. I have tried to be careful even after 2 vaccinations and booster. I mask indoors around people if I am not 100% sure everyone is vaccinated. I have-not been masking outdoors. I am very aware of distance between people indoors and out. I am fearful of getting Covid again.

The morning of the 24th. I woke up energized to clean the apartment to host my son and his wife for Christmas Eve dinner as I had done last year on our first day out of Covid quarantine. I noticed my eyes felt a little scratchy that morning but didn’t think much of it. A couple of hours later, I found out that the 10 y/o I had a brief close contact with on the Tuesday had tested positive for Covid on Thursday. After checking my temperature and finding it slightly elevated I decided to go get PCR test done. Frustration/apprehension/fatigue set in as I quarantined, canceled dinner and waited. Christmas morning the PCR test came back negative for Covid and influenza A so I decided to enjoy Christmas – everyone that gathered had tested negative with rapid tests. It was a lovely day.

On Sunday, the 26th, I woke up fatigued with loss of appetite, mild aches and elevated temperature. On the Monday I decided to cancel my trip to cycle with friends that I had really been looking forward to. Wednesday I felt “less unwell” and Thursday I started to feel better as my temp dipped back to normal for the first time. I went to some pretty dark places on the 26th and 27th – almost exactly a year from my Covid experience. I felt so fortunate that I did not have any long lasting effects from Covid besides loss of taste and smell. After several days of fatigue this week, I feared not getting my energy back to do all the things I want to do. I didn’t retest because I wouldn’t do anything differently. It may have been a different virus all together. During most of my adult life, I would have worked right through the degree of symptoms I had – because I could have. I have a entirely different perspective now after my attempt to exercise fatigue away resulted in Covid. 2021 started with Covid and ends with a week of isolation with a virus, perhaps omicron. I ventured out today for groceries and my energy level was OK so my fear is subsiding.

I want to end this blog in a good place. December was not all bad. On December 2nd, I had my orientation visit at the Nashville Tools for Schools workshop. It was great and I started working immediately. The workshop is quite large with all kinds of big saws and cool tools. The group meets Mon-Wed mornings for about 4 hours and builds various structures (including outdoor classrooms) for schools. The group is all older retired men – mostly over 70. They created a Ladies Room for me and on my last day before holiday break, they turned me loose with a table saw cutting scrap pieces.

When we restart next week, the group will go back to full Covid precautions – only 4 people working in the large shop at a time.

2021 was a crazy year: Covid, retirement, spending 2.5 months on the road visiting friends and family, starting to build my community in Nashville and discovering my love of carpentry. My joy of owning Carli has surprised me the most. I never understood people who dressed their dogs before and now I am one of those people – it makes me laugh (and she doesn’t mind). I will end with a couple of Carli pictures and hope they make you at least smile.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I have no idea what to expect from 2022.

I am laying propped up on my sofa with my computer on one leg creating space so I do not disturb Carli’s nap. She was not inclined to be moved right now. She has the most entertaining moans – some of contentment and some of resentment. To my ear they sound pretty much the same but her behavior suggests they are different. She also snorts, sneezes, belches, and farts for additional entertainment.

I want to reflect on all that I am thankful for this morning: my son, my daughter-in-law and her family that always welcome me to holiday gatherings; my growing community of friends in my new home city; my family in Iowa; my incredible network of friends around the country; my post Covid health; my commitment to fitness and increasing muscle definition of my shoulders; my thorough enjoyment of my volunteer activities and for my decision to adopt Carli. It has been 4.5 months now. We are thoroughly bonded and her personality, aside from just being stubborn, continues to emerge. She stares into my eyes with great meaning. I learning the subtitles of her language. She does something to make me laugh every day and she gives me love every day.

I was quite concerned when the vet said she needed to lose weight because I really couldn’t get her to take a walk and she loved her treats. It didn’t seem fair to starve her. Fortunately over the past couple fo months, we discovered that while she does not like to take walks or play fetch, she does like to chase Brady who loves to play fetch. []’p – this was Carli’s typing wanting my attention. I stopped to pet her a bit and never got back to this.]

Monday – I generally drive over to my son’s to exercise Carli – she chases Brady while Brady plays fetch, but I have the option of biking or walking with Carli in the backpack. She generally is content in the pack.

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday with an outdoor picnic at Arrington Vineyards. It was chilly in the wind but it didn’t damper the fun for this group who had not been together since Christmas of 2019. My ongoing lack of taste kept me from overeating but I did eat more than I needed trying to find something that I could taste. Sadly, I do not taste pumpkin pie but I can taste whipped cream. It is soooo bizarre.o

Today I really needed to do some “adulting” but instead I laid low while intermittently icing the knee that I tweaked while sleeping in one position too long. One of Carli’s sleeping poses that made me laugh today.

My computer is actually laying on top of her body right now while she sleeps.

Carli is a great distracter. I can be productive when I want to be – but mostly I still don’t want to be that productive.

Katherine and I cycled to Overmountain Winery on Thursday about 11 miles from her home in Columbus NC. She said we were going to take the least hilly route to get there. I had ridden with her to the winery 2 years ago and remembered it to be challenging but not bad. It was a partly cloudy day in upper 60’s – another beautiful day for cycling. The hills were more challenging than I remembered. I think the 14mph cross and head winds made it significantly more challenging. I had to get off and walk a short segment going each way – I prefer walking to falling over if I run out of steam.

As were were nearing the winery, she signaled she was slowing, crossed the road and got off her bike. I was confused until I looked up and saw Flushing Meadow Farm.

No one seems to know who is responsible for this creative toilet art but as a urologist, I took full advantage of the photo opportunities. I thought it would be a good opportunity to demonstrate good toileting posture for complete bladder emptying – perhaps I will be able to use it in a talk sometime.

This reminded me of the time Katherine and I were in Sante Fe making a video on how to do Kegel exercises in the early 90’s. I cannot remember the exact circumstance but we were in the bathroom for some of the shoot. While Kegel or pelvic muscle exercises are standard of care now for urinary incontinence, they were not at the time.

Katherine founded Help for Incontinent People (HIP) in the 80’s at her kitchen table. The organization is now known as National Association for Continence (NAFC) and continues to be a excellent source of information for persons with bladder and bowel control problems. I was asked to join the Board of Directors for HIP in the 1988 or 1989. I had been in practice about a year and while I was surgeon I had learned that my surgical tools did not meet the needs of very many of the women I was seeing. My enthusiasm about my evolving nonsurgical skills cobbled together from limited literature, common sense and tracking what was helping the women was not taken seriously by my colleagues. Katherine thought these approaches did make sense and she gave me the confidence to ignore the naysayers and move forward focusing on meeting the woman’s needs – using a problem solving approach with gradual expansion of the nonsurgical toolkit. I consider Katherine as my first mentor.

In 2017, 30 years after we met, Katherine asked me to go on a cycling trip with her and a small group of friends to celebrate her 80th birthday. It remains a bit unclear why I said yes after she clarified it was a 444 mile bike ride of the Natchez Trace from Nashville to Natchez, MS. I knew I needed to take my health more seriously and I would have 14 months to prepare so I bought a bicycle and got started. In October of 2018, I did ride 400 of the 444 miles over 9 days and it was a life-changing experience for me. I love cycling. As I look back on it, I am amazed I rode that many miles and hills. I was DETERMINED!!

The most impactful part of the experience was meeting a new group of people – all retired except me. They showed me what happy, active retirement looked like. Having the support of Katherine and her friends, that are now my friends, has made my transition to NOT working easier. I look forward to may more cycling adventures.

Thanks Katherine.

• 

I drove to Columbus, NC yesterday for a few days of fall biking with friends. It was a pretty easy drive and while trees were past peak colors the drive was still enjoyable even with a significant traffic back up because of an accident about half way between Nashville and Knoxville followed shortly by a slow down for road construction. It added at least 30 minutes to the trip but I was able to catch up with a friend on the phone during the stop and go traffic which made it go much faster.

I have not cycled in several weeks for NO good reason and I could tell it was beginning to impact my mood. I need these few days of cycling to get me started again. Today we road the Isothermal Trail (rail-trail) starting in Forrest City NC. Total trip was 27.3 miles. There were graded ups and downs that made it seem pretty flat – it did not feel like we rode 27 miles. The temperature got to 70 – warmer than I dressed for. I had a layer under this long sleeve jacket which I took off before we started. There was a substantial headwind on our way back which made the jacket more tolerable.

The photo was taken by the Police Chief in Spindale NC at Wayne’s Lunch Box where we stopped for lunch. I ordered a fried grouper sandwich with pimento cheese and jalapeños. Wayne came out to ask me how the sandwich was because no one had ordered it with those toppings before. I was simply trying to get something I could taste. I am not sure how much I really tasted but I enjoyed it.

This morning when I pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead I went a bit too far forward and heard a mild scrape under my bumper. This is not an unusual occurrence for me and aside from saying SHIT, I didn’t think to much about it. The drive back to Columbus was 16 miles of divided highway and I don’t recall hearing anything amiss.

As we were driving through downtown Columbus there was a new sound. Katherine commented that the wind must have really picked up. We had about a mile left and as we reached the gate of her community, I was wondering if there was an air base near by because it sounded like planes were flying low overhead. Then the sound changed again and it was a scraping sound under the car. Once car was parked we could see that a panel was loose. It had been dragged and the edge was now frayed. Katherine suggested we take the car to Professional Auto Services in Columbus. If we drove as it was the panel would continue to drag and fray at a minimum. Katherine found a heavy shoestring that was long enough to MacGyver the problem.

Tennessee does not require front licence plates which I find annoying because that is the easiest way to identify Uber/Lyft rides. The rear plate is of no use. I had this ugly, empty plate holder. However today I was glad to have this empty unnecessary plate holder. After we got the car to Professional Auto Services, two men came out and said they thought they could get it taken care of if we could give them an hour. Given we were in a small town, an hour gave us time to go home and shower and relax before going back to get the car. I was charged $20. Katherine asked if I got the shoestring back – I have to admit I didn’t think to ask but perhaps it will be in the car.

Tomorrow we will ride 11 miles to a local winery, have lunch and ride back. Life is good.

I am pretty sure I know which night the diaphragm failed – and by failed I mean I was too exhausted to get up and put it in. My quick determination that I was in “safe” time of month was flawed. My periods were regular so when my period was late and I began to experience unusual urinary frequency I was strongly suspicious. Morning sickness was not far behind and the pregnancy was quickly confirmed. I was on my general surgery rotation and I had no idea what was ahead but I was very clear/hopeful that the pregnancy would not interfere with my responsibilities. There were only 2 other women in the general surgery, one in orthopedics, and no other women surgical subspecialties. No one had been pregnant in any of the programs yet so I was on my own.

The Chair of the Urology Department was congratulatory and I recall him saying something like “I hope you didn’t have as much trouble telling your husband as you did me?” I think the department faculty really expected that I would drop out of residency at some point before completion of residency.

The nausea was 24 hour sea sickness. I didn’t vomit. Food in my stomach helped and Orange Crush became the beverage of choice. I don’t recall any real increase in fatigue as I was already fatigued. At that time, Bendectin for morning sickness was available and it helped me AlOT. It was during my first trimester that safety concerns about Bendectin emerged. It was not taken off the market until early 1983. I continued to use it until the worst of the nausea subsided and I am not sure I could have worked without it.

I started showing pretty early. There was no self-care besides whatever sleep I could get. By 6 months, people started asking when I was due. Keeping food in my stomach was necessary for nausea in second trimester after I stopped the Bendectin. I gained weight. I don’t think it truly interfered in any way with my responsibilities until I got to my last month. I recall being on call on a Sunday. I was on my feet all day long running round doing preoperative admissions for the next day. At that time, everyone was admitted to the hospital the day before surgery and everyone got EKG and CXR. There were at least 10 admissions that day. By early evening I noted my ankles were very swollen and I started having false contractions. I tried to put my feet up and wait it out but I contractions did not subside and I was advised to go home and rest. I had to call my chief resident and ask for help. I recall he was gracious and came in for the rest of the night as we stayed in the hospital overnight for call. My contractions stopped and I was back at work the next day. I think I may have stopped taking overnight call at that point but I continued to work normal schedule until I delivered 6 days before my due date. I do recall having to sit or lean on high stools during some long operations when I was just there to hold retractors.

I am sure I have forgotten many of the comments and behaviors during my pregnancy that would be considered unacceptable today but two are hard to forget. The first was my chief resident on general surgery would make fake gagging/vomiting sounds every time he would see me. Of course I laughed it off – every time, but it was not funny or helpful. Worse was a comment from a urology faculty member. The conversation started as one that might have been genuine concern – he asked how I was doing. When I responded that I had significant nausea that Bendectin made tolerable. He responded with “you know your baby will be born with a birth defect don’t you?” To make it worse, this was at a time when I was assigned to the transplant service with exposure to cytomegalovirus that can be problematic for the fetus. He was as ass. Consults in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit were challenging for me until I got to my last month when I felt it was unlikely that my child would require the NICU.

My assigned rotation for the last 2 months of pregnancy was the outpatient clinic so I was not in the operating room except when I was on call. This is what I would have been doing had I not been pregnant. I was very uncomfortable the last few weeks and at 38 weeks I tried every old wive’s tale to induce labor. I worked Friday and went into labor at 1 AM the following Monday delivering my son at 8 AM. I had no intention of having natural childbirth and had not done Lamaze. I did get an epidural as soon as I could and it worked well for one contraction. I was progressing too quickly to have it redone so I felt every other contraction. Perhaps the epidural diminished the amount of pain I had with each contraction. I retained solid memories of the pain for many, many years. My husband was in the delivery room and he took some photos of the birth. I am not sure I still have them.

As it turned out pregnancy, labor and delivery were the easy parts of my journey.

Stay tuned.

I am visiting family in Denver with time to write. The flight to Denver was uneventful. It was my first time since Covid and the Nashville airport seemed pretty normal except everyone had a mask on. The flight was the same. It was full and everyone had a mask on and I felt OK about it. While I have a purple suitcase because purple is my color, it used to be a unique color on the baggage claim belts. It appears that purple is now a popular color for suitcases. I almost got two that were not mine off of the belt.

Since July, I have had several times when I thought I was done with resting my brain and ready to use the professional skills that I accumulated over my career – only to realize within a short period of time that I simply was not ready.

I have had a wonderful opportunity to work with a colleague on a start-up for a product that I have interest in/passion for but I kept putting it off. It would only require a few hours a week but even that was too much for me to commit to for months. I was ready to make that commitment a few weeks ago and it has felt good to use my professional brain again.

Next week I am having 2 meetings with different individuals – one local to Nashville and one that would be a remote opportunity to explore other ways of using my skills in meaningful ways. One is an in-person lunch meeting. I have not worn business clothes – even business casual since Feb 2020. It will be interesting.

I continue to do “private” health advocacy for the personal joy it provides. I recognize that I could have a successful private health advocacy business and there is a need for this role, it has become clear that I have no appetite for the business aspects of such an endeavor. I would love to partner with someone who would develop a business that provides the infrastructure for other private health advocates as a joint business venture. I could pilot the process for others to join. Health care professionals rarely have business skills. I think there are other retiring health professionals from all backgrounds (social work, nursing, occupational therapy, medicine) that would be interesting in doing private health advocacy if there was a process to plug in to. A business that was inclusive of advocates from various professional backgrounds could create teams for clients that could better meet their complex needs.

It appears that figuring out what I do NOT want to do may be easier than what I DO want to do. I can live with that.

My daughter-in-law asked my son why I had texted him a picture of a toilet. Replacing the broken toilet seat was on my list of things to do for months. Having never done it before I assumed it was going to be difficult and that I was going to have to go through my unopened box of tools (that was at the bottom of a stack in the closet) which I was not ready to do. Neither of these assumptions was true and I felt a great sense of accomplishment and shared it with my son.

This led to a decision to go ahead and tackle the box of tools. I am more interested in what tools I do have after building a few times for Habitat. So I got out my box of tools and called a friend of my son who does remodeling work and asked him to come over and help me sort them out.

In addition to the above I had several small containers of bolts, screws and accumulated stuff that I organized before he came over. I ended up with stuff to keep; stuff to throw away and a few things to consider keeping or giving away if I can find power supply for them. Another great sense of accomplishment.

Next on the list of stuff I had been avoiding was getting my Epson Eco-friendly printer to print. I had made a couple of half-hearted attempts but got frustrated and figured out work arounds to printing. But I now had a document for IRS that required a real signature so I either had to figure it out or go somewhere and pay to print. One of the challenges with the refillable ink wells seems to be that they need to be used “regularly” to keep the ink jets open. The instructions on the printer are actually pretty good when you sit down and learn how to follow them. The Epson customer service was also very helpful. I had to go through the cleaning process 6-8 times in order to get the jets open but I now have a functional printer. I will try to remember to print something at least once a week to prevent the problem.

Next on the list was renewing license/registration for my car. In MD you just needed to do this every 2 years but in TN it is yearly. I went on line and got stopped by something to do with emission testing. In Tennessee, the emission testing requirement is county by county. There was no clear guidance on line for Davidson County. I called for help and it turns out the emission testing needs to be done every year for Davidson County. There is an emission testing place within 3 miles of where I live that I used last year. The wait was maybe 10 minutes. My first try was about 11 AM thinking I would avoid a lunch hour rush. There was a line 2 blocks on the street with an additional block length line on the facility property. I didn’t get in line and went back mid to late afternoon.It was the same thing so I got in line. It moved very slowly and it would have been faster had I gotten out of line and gone to a suburban location. After awhile I wanted to see how long it was actually going to take. One hour and 10 minutes was the answer. The facility only had one of their lines open and there was a HELP wanted sign posted. My car passed the test and the website processed my renewal within 2 hours and the new tags arrived in 3 days. Next year, I will start the process at the beginning of the month and if there is a line, I will go to a less populated area to get it done. I wonder if I would be qualified to do Emission Testing part-time.

I just completed the last item on my list this morning – air filters for my HVAC. I need an odd size that none of the stores or even Amazon carry. I got frustrated trying to find the best deal from companies that would ship so I am a “month” late on changing the filter. Since I didn’t change it for nearly a year before it got clogged, I am not too worried but I do want to be “kind” to my HVAC since I own it. Today I just went with FilterBuy and it seems that many other owners in this complex use this company as well. When I typed in my address at least 50 other units showed up on the list of addresses.

In my new life, this counts as “killing it”.

I think everything else that is waiting to be done can’t be done until after my kitchen renovation (which it looks like will be after the first of the year) at the speed things are progressing. Once that is done I can finish unpacking and finish purging all that does not have a place in my new home. I will organize my home in a way that I can put my personal stuff in my storage unit so I can rent my place for one or more months while I go on the road. I have been looking at Class B campers on Facebook. I am not sure that is what I want, but I want to get more knowledgeable about them in case I want to go that direction.

Since I started cycling 4 years ago, I have been trying to figure out a way to learn more about my bike so I will not be so fearful when I am riding on my own. Watching YouTube videos has not met my needs. I needed “hands on” learning. I approached a couple of bike shops about “apprenticing”. – one in MD and one when I arrived in Nashville and both said NO. However the one in Nashville recommended a Build a Bike Workshop for adults at the Oasis Center http://www.oasisbikeworkshop.org. I contacted the person in charge immediately but as we were still in midst of pandemic he was not holding workshops.

He restarted the Adult Workshop in September and it ran Thursday evenings, 530-8PM for 6 weeks. It was held in the basement of the Oasis Center and the workshop was set up with 8 stands for bikes. My class had 7 people. The primary build a bike program is for middle school children to build a bike that they keep. The Oasis Center has at least a thousand bikes that have been donated for this purpose. They are now set up to take the youth program to the schools.

The Adult program is a fundraiser for the youth program. I mistakenly thought we built a bike and then gave it to a youth, but adults build a bike and take it home. I don’t need another bike so I decided to build one for my daughter-in-law who does not have a bike.

The first session we got this picture that I thought was awesome. We used the same curriculum that the Youth use.

I was able to take my daughter-in-law over to pick out a bike and she chose a retro road bike.

We didn’t build a bike from scratch but rather learned about key components of the bike – deconstructed, inspected, cleaned and put back together. If any part needed to be replaced or upgraded we had donated parts or “took” from other donated bikes. On session 2 it was determined the wheels on the selected bike needed to be replaced and it turned out that the appropriate size wheels would come from a bike that was a better so I swapped bikes to this Peugot. This bike had been well maintained so there was not really anything that needed to be replaced.

It was quickly clear why bike shops were not interested in having someone
apprentice. There are so many nuances and different tools for various parts of the bike. After doing the class once, I think I can manage my tires and most other things I could manage with with YouTube videos – assuming I have the right tools for the problem.

In my new stress-free life, I found myself feeling a bit of stress some weeks with some of the tasks. I have a lot of respect for the skill it would take to build a wheel from scratch – just trying to “true” the wheels made me sweat.

The 6th week was graduation where we all rode our bikes to a brewery about 2 miles away and had a beer.

And I am now a Junior Master Mechanic – the same certificate the youth get when they finished the program. I would absolutely do this program again, but will need to find someone to build the bike for.

I still have a profound loss of taste and smell from Covid in January 2021. I have recovered more taste than smell. I can taste dark chocolate – it is a subdued “normalish”. I can taste some wines – again “normalish” while others have NO taste. They are “heavier” than water in my mouth but without flavor. I can enjoy oranges, bananas, peanut butter, grapes, salmon by which I mean they are more than texture. Spicy coconut milk Thai soup makes my mouth “happy”. Otherwise most food is experienced as a texture covered with a spicy sauce of some sort.

I hadn’t recovered as much smell as I did taste. Cycling through a yard while it is being mowed, I would sense a “heaviness” as I inhaled but no specific smell. I have not noticed any improvement since mid-June or so. I have pretty well adjusted to it. While I miss the full experience of food, the lack of taste is an important part of why I have “effortlessly” kept weight off – something I have never been able to do before. I am grateful that I do not have fatigue, respiratory or cardiac long-haul symptoms.

Three weeks ago when I used a port-a-potty, I got a whiff of the heavily scented urinal cake – but nothing else. This past Sunday when I used the port-a-potty, I smelled more than just the urinal cake; not the full experience but definitely more. That evening I got a hint of salmon as I cooked it and Monday morning a hint of garlic as I sautéed it.

I was so excited about having more smell at the Habitat for Humanity build site that I had to share my excitement with the other Supervisors on Site (SOS) as I introduced myself. They are a great group of people that I look forward to working with. The SOS is an informal apprenticeship – I feel pretty comfortable with caulking, tacking up blue foam around edge of what will be the ceiling and siding (the easy parts). I can see that it will not take too long for me to feel comfortable supervising some aspects of the work on my own.

Perhaps I will continue to recover some taste and smell gradually. Time will tell.

I was awake this morning at the time of my son’s birth, just before 8 AM Central Time. He is a remarkable human being and I am so thankful with the decision I made in 1982 when I got unexpectedly pregnant as first year resident in a urology residency. I ignored the fact that it was a horrible time to be pregnant and have a child. I had terminated a pregnancy 3 years earlier and did not want to make that choice again. I did not tolerate the birth control pill and we were a fertile young couple in spite of barrier birth control methods.

I knew there would never be a good time to have a child. My husband was working on his PhD with a fairly flexible schedule and I had parents and siblings within an hour to provide support. I knew my parents were ready to be grandparents so there was never any thought given to not being pregnant. Pregnancy during residency was a grueling experience and I will reflect on that at a later time. Today I want to reflect on my son.

He was a pretty easy baby except that he did not go to bed easily and this persisted throughout his life and perhaps worked well for his chosen career as a musician. I wonder if all of the stress hormones running through my body during pregnancy from the challenges and lack of sleep of residency were a part of this. I did my best to be “present” for him during by residency, fellowship and early years of practice, but there was no question that his father was his primary caretaker.

He loved playing with sticks and wooden spoons as a toddler – so much that my sister hand painted wooden spoons as a Christmas present when he was 2 or 3. He has grown up to be a very talented drummer. For awhile during grade school he would spend hours perfecting his autograph – also useful for his future that was unknown at the time.

We called him Jamie until he went to Kindergarten. He came home one day and said his name was James. He developed independence very early as I think his father and I both did. I recall a particular parenting struggle when he was in third grade and being chonically late with his reading assignments. Per usual, enticements and deterrents were equally ineffective. He finally said “It is my problem and I will deal with it!” And that continued. He lived with the consequences of his decisions.

He spent 6-8 weeks every summer from age 4 -15 or 16 on the Iowa farm with grandparents and various aunts/uncles. He was a city kid and did not really help out with any farm work. He was the oldest grandchildren and only one for almost 6 years so he had a very special relationship with my parents and siblings. He was a great “cuz-uncle” with his first cousins. He was good friends with a boy from a neighboring farm that was two years older and I knew this relationship allowed him to test his boundaries in his early teen years. My parents had raised 3 sons and I figured that Iowa was a safer place to “scare himself a bit” than back in Seattle.

My father was a gregarious person who got along with most people and my son has that ability as well. I didn’t quite realize how special their relationship truly was until he asked his grandfather to be one of his groomsmen. When my father died, the one thing my son wanted was the key to the back door of the farm house. He has worn it around his neck. Several years ago when I was in Nashville and we were helping one of his friends move, the necklace broke and he key fell off. About a half dozen people spent a fair amount of time searching the yard and the key was found. It meant A LOT to me that the key meant so much to him.

His relationship with my parents was so much different from mine. Their constant bickering had very negative impact on me, but he seemed to find it more amusing and perhaps understood some of the discord to be how they expressed “affection”.

I finally figured out a way to be far more present for him when he was in high school and I took a position in Philadelphia while he stayed in Seattle. I negotiated to spend a week of month in Seattle where I could be a full-time mother to a high schooler. I kept my home for the week I was there and he stayed with his father the other weeks. When I was in Seattle, I took him to school, picked him up from school and didn’t worked when he was home. It was something that I had never been able to figure out how to do while I was working in Seattle. Our relationship improved when I actually made time to be there for him.

During his challenging adolescent years, I remember saying to friends that I would be content with whomever he became as long was he was respectful to women. In my own mind, I knew I could be accepting of tattoos, piercings, unusual hair styles or colors but knew I would be very challenged if he were to become an “Alex P. Keaton”. He did not.

He found his passion in drumming in junior high. While he had taken snare drum lessons in 2nd grade, he did not continue. He tried trumpet, saxophone and guitar in 5th/6th grade but nothing clicked. One day in 7th grade he said he wanted a drum set. This was shortly after the divorce. I had the home with a basement so I was a great target for this request. Getting the drum set for him was one of the best decisions I ever made. He not only found his passion but a great mentor in his private drum instructor, a great peer group and teachers for his high school years.

He has matured into a thoughtful, kind man that is indeed very respectful to women. He seems to understand how to a loving and supportive partner in his 20 year relationship with his wife. Perhaps he learned more about what not to do from the examples in his life and those helped him understand what was really important in his own marriage

He has been very supportive of my transition from “giving it my all” to my work to not working. When I express any guilt at not having accomplished much in any given day, he says “DON”T feel guilty.” When I feel a little unhinged because I didn’t have a plan for the future, he reminds me that I didn’t need one. I can relax and see how things unfolded.

My decision to move to Nashville was a good one. There is comfort in being nearby for me and I hope for him as well. As he matured into an wonderful human being, I have gradually felt less guilt for not being a bigger part in his life when he was young. I think today, his 39th birthday is a good time to formally “let the guilt go”.

He is the best of me and his father.