9 posts tagged “family”
My favorite person in my extended family was my Auntie Butch, a name given to her by my father in his childhood. The story, I think, goes that he could not pronounce her given name, Beulah. She was my great aunt, my paternal grandmother's sister. Her husband died long before I was born. She lived in Centralia, Illinois, and we would drive on Sunday afternoons to see her, for fried chicken dinners, and to pick apples and peaches in small town orchards, where you bought your fruit by the bushel.
So many of my best childhood memories are tied up in her house, with her. She had a calendar with the months of the year in French. Under the coffee table in the living room, she had a basket of wood chips that had been carved into and smelled like apple slices. In the back bedroom, in the dresser, was a collection of old Viewfinder films that Stephanie and I spent hours poring over. Every year, we got to pick out what we wanted for our birthday dinner - I always wanted fried chicken and peach cobbler. We stayed with her when my parents went to Chicago, went to church with her, met her friends, and walked to the grocery store. She went to California and Disneyland with us when I was nine. My first plane ride, spending time with the cousins, and so many memories of that trip. She never got any older to me - her hair never greyed, and it felt like she was always happy. I don't know if she was always happy - maybe she was just glad to see us - but I don't have a single memory of her being unhappy.
When I was eleven, we picked her up at the airport after a long trip to Colorado (where her daughter lived at the time). She stayed the night at our house, we did a little shopping the next day, and then made the drive back to Centralia. We didn't stay long. She offered to make us dinner, before her brother stopped by, but it was getting late and it was a school night. Shortly after we got to St. Louis, we got a phone call, either from her brother or her daughter, telling us that her brother went into the house after she didn't answer, and found her unconscious, on the floor. She was taken to St. Mary's, and then flown into Barnes, in St. Louis. She was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Over the next few days, her daughter came to St. Louis (and stayed with us for weeks), and she had surgery. We spent our weeknights in the ICU for a long time, and were allowed to see her in a step-down unit a few weeks later. Even as young as I was, I realized that, even if she was still alive, my Auntie Butch was gone.
I struggled with what happened for a long time. I felt guilty for years about leaving right before this happened, for her being alone when it happened. I felt badly for the way that her wishes were being denied; that day, on the drive back to Centralia, she and my mother had a long discussion on her end-of-life wishes - not to be kept alive for longer than she was meant to be here, she said. I dont' remember how long it took for me to stop crying at night. It was a time in my life that still weighs very heavily upon me. It probably has no small role in my decision to become a physician, and I know that it is why the importance of a "good death" and hospice and end-of-life care are a significant portion of my ethical dialogue.
After awhile, Susie moved Auntie Butch to a nursing home in Centralia, so that her friends would be able to visit. We went to see her as frequently as we could, even taking her apple picking one year. Eventually, she went on a feeding tube, and eventually, she became confused. I don't know how much she knew the last time we went to visit. I don't know if she knew me, or Stephanie. I'm sure she knew my father. Susie went back to Colorado, and then to Missouri, coming for visits and to take care of the business end. The house was sold, and we came together to pick over her things and take what we wanted. The Viewfinder had already been snatched, but my favorite picture and some of the blankets she made came with us. I snuck a wooden apple chip into my pocket, and put it somewhere safe, where it stayed for years.
Four years ago, sometime in the night, my Auntie Butch passed away in the nursing home. Nobody who loved her was there to see her go. We got the news in the morning and shifted our plans for the week. She died on a Sunday morning, the funeral was on a Tuesday. It was, as funerals go, full of people I am related to, but have never met before in my life, and whom I will probably never see again. It was stressful and sad, but it was over. She had, in truth, died years before, when she was no longer the vivid, smiling, always-a-brunette woman, active in her church and her community, the nicest person you could ever hope to meet anywhere.
I'm mostly fine with this thought. I have a lot of "happy" to go to when I think about her. The afghan that sits on my bed even now still smells faintly of her house. The apple chip still lives "somewhere safe" at my parents' house - they found it a while back and asked me when I took it. Nobody ever took the trouble to make her write down her peach pie recipe, and I've never really liked fried chicken because it doesn't taste like hers.
Today was a hard day, where I didn't feel like I could do or say the right things for people. I felt like I was hurting or breaking whatever I touched. And I didn't know why - something just felt amiss. I can't blame this on that, but the realization that today was the day that it was really didn't help things very much.
I haven't been back to Centralia since the funeral. But things happen, sometimes unexpectedly, that bring me back - I'll be in an old house and I'll catch a whiff of the smell of her house, or I'll have dinner at a friend's house and eat off their mom's old Desert Rose china. I caught myself wishing that she had been at my graduation from Mizzou, or wondering what she would have thought of me being in medical school. I know that she would have aged enough - she would have been in her mid 80s by now - that I wouldn't be spending any weekends off at her house if all of this hadn't happened. I wonder if she'd be proud of who I've become, the person and the life.
I don't know. I just miss her so much right now.
A very good weekend, indeed.
- I lost my Jimmy Buffett "virginity" on Thursday night. Dad took me to the Buffett concert at Riverport - my birthday present. It was a seriously good time - the peoplewatching is second-to-none. Things seen: a blender powered by a Weed Eater motor, a flagpole with both Buffett pirate and Mizzou flags, and several of my dad's coworkers. The music was solid, the liquor flowing - it was everything it is purported to be, and if anyone ever has the chance to go to a Buffett show, do it.
- I bought a new-to-me car - a 2006 Chevy Aveo with about 33K miles. It's a nice, very small car, with fairly decent gas mileage... and nothing falling off the bottom of it. I can actually hear myself think in this car - the last one was desperately needed about $1000 in repairs, including a new muffler, new central exhaust, and new axles and boots. Anyway... it's silver and it needs a name. I have not yet ascertained my car's "gender," but suggestions are appreciated.
- I went to services with my dad on Friday night. Mom wasn't feeling that great, but we were on Oneg duty, so someone had to go. It was a very small minyan - maybe 15 people. A funny moment: it is our tradition that the pre-b'nai mitzvot children (under 13) undress the Torah before it's read. On Friday, I was the youngest person there, so I was goaded into undressing the Torah, which I haven't done in almost 10 years. Quite a bit of teasing ensued.
- After services, I spent some time with Zach, which was really great - I've missed him a lot this year, and haven't seen him since he was in Chicago for a protest at the end of October. So we went for a drink and then hung out at his dad's for a while, watched the end of the Cardinals game and caught up.
- Saturday was mostly a study day, and then we went for dinner with Aunt Ruth for my birthday. She made a pie for dessert, and I stayed around for a little bit after my parents left, just to talk to her about things.
I should be heading back to Chicago in a little bit, just waiting for my iPod to charge... this week is not going to be an easy one in any sense of the imagination!
I always feel a little guilty about complaining about my life. Knowing how much I have, compared to those who have so little, and that the struggles in my life are almost always trivial in nature.
It's rare these days for me to really, really want to be somewhere else. I don't mean that in the sense that I hate Chicago in the winter, and I want to be somewhere warm. Today, the only thing I really wanted to be doing was getting in my car and driving back to St. Louis. Stephanie's home this weekend to sing for a bar mitzvah, and I don't know when I'm going to see her again.
And it's Teen Camp weekend. I haven't missed one in three years. A bunch of my kids are graduating from high school this year. A bunch of my kids are old enough to go for the first time this year. It's hard for me to be away, especially when I don't know what the summer's going to hold for me yet. I don't know what place camp is going to have in my future life - I know that it can always be in my life if I want it. But it's going to be really hard to keep it up over the next couple years. It's always been such a happy part of my life, the one week of my year that I looked forward to, really, the happiest place in my world. Sure, there were times when my involvement was painful, but if there was ever an easy decision to be made, it was always, "Go back to camp." Camp is a happy, happy place, even when you're not sleeping and your camper is running around you in circles and you smell like... camp. It's an easy, easy place to be.
I feel like there isn't a single part of my life that's easy. There's not a single part of my life that isn't a struggle, and I feel like there are so many days when I've got to come out fighting. School is hard, friends are hard, talking is hard, everything is hard. I do alright keeping it in most days, but today was not one of them. I cried on the way home from dinner. I couldn't hold onto it anymore, and there is nobody here to talk to about it.
I apologize for my half-formed thoughts. I just want something in my life to be easy again. I just want to go home.
It is still obscenely cold in the Chicago area. My mother reminded me a few days ago that, when we came up to look at apartments in July, how cool I thought it would be to be this close to the lake. I was so young then, and naïve. The lake is where the cold comes from!! The lake is where the wind comes from!!
Setting aside any problems I have with wind chill...
It's going to be a long night of pathways, carbohydrate metabolism, and electron transport... wheeeee... Not a whole lot has happened the last couple days, in any respect. We're all so bogged down with exams and just exhausted. I hosted a study group for embryology last night, pretty chill but still fun. I'm going to be eating leftover pasta con broccoli (St. Louis style, oversauced to no end) for the rest of the week. Sent Martha home with leftovers, and let Faye take a bowl yesterday, and there is still enough pasta to last me until at least Thursday.
I'm ready for the break. I'm ready for the week away, the week away from *everything*, putting some real, physical distance between school and my "school personal life" to figure some things out and steady myself a little bit. I'm ready to see my parents and some of my friends, and establish a normal sleep pattern, if only for a few days.
In the meantime, pathways, pathways, pathways...
I haven't updated in a few days, but it's been pretty slow for the most part. Finals came and went, pretty uneventfully, I think. I felt pretty good about all of my finals. If I have to write another freaking essay on stem cell research, I'm going to pummel the person who assigns it.
Oh yeah. I graduated. At least, I received a medal for my divisional honors and an attractive portfolio that I can display my diploma in, which I will receive in 4 to 8 weeks after satisfactory completion of my degree (thanks, guys). My rural sociology mentor was my faculty mentor at the honors convocation, so we had a little bit of extra time to sit and chat. She gave me a card and a present, which was really sweet. I'm glad that she and I have gotten so close - I'll really miss her if/when I end up leaving Columbia.
Anyway... my dad, grandmother, and sister arrived early for the honors ceremony. It takes place on the Quad, which is really the historical centerpiece of campus and very beautiful. The Quad houses six ionic columns, which are the last remainders of Academic Hall, the first building on campus. It actually used to be a lot prettier, but currently houses the construction equipment for the School of Journalism expansion. Anyway, it was a very nice, short ceremony.
After that, we met my mom, aunt, and Kim at the Hearnes Center for the CAFNR convocation (College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources). It was a tad bit more relaxed, in that one person actually did the processional with beer in hand. Mostly very nice. All of the professors in your department who attend stand up to shake your hand or hug as you walk across the stage, and since I was pretty close with a lot of my biochemistry professors, it was a nice thing. The commencement speaker was our beloved (not!) governor, Matt Blunt. I really can't stand the guy, and really, *really* didn't want to shake his hand, but decided it would be rude not to. So I did, and my parents tried to get a picture, but couldn't because I barely touched him, since I was unable to shield my disgust. So that was pretty funny... but I have governor cooties now.
So, yeah. I'm now the proud bearer of a degree in Biochemistry, with minors in Rural Sociology and Chemistry. Hire me! Let me into medical school! Tell me that you love me! Praise me!
I've made my final journey away from my beloved Columbia for at least a couple weeks - there has been so much driving in my life the last couple of weeks. My car needs a rest, and I need to stay in one place, both physically and mentally, for a little while.
So here's what I've been up to, while I've been gallivanting about the state and not blogging:
- Wednesday: In St. Louis for Billy Joel. Freaking incredible, except for the lack of Vienna and Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. Dad and I met my mother at Pasta House for dinner, and then he and I left for the concert. To be fair, Mr. Joel did make some ill-advised setlist choices - namely, allowing a roadie to sing an ACDC cover and omitting a few of my very favorite songs. I can't expect for him to consult me on such matters. Regardless, it was a great birthday present and I had a good time.
- Thursday: Taught and something else that I don't remember now. I did watch some excellent television and studied for a chemistry exam.
- Friday: Took said exam, went to class, sat at Speaker's Circle and was thoroughly entertained by two religious groups that I would deem to be at least somewhat fanatical. One is a little more mainstream, or at least more culturally accepted. I always love it when I encounter people who, when I tell them that I'm Jewish and at least a little serious about it, pretend like they know what it means and that it includes some mechanism of salvation similar to what they have encountered in their own faith. I'm JEWISH - that means that there are at least a few differences between my faith and theirs, and if they were really that interested in converting me, they would learn something about it, so they can tell me why theirs is better.
- Saturday: I went to the grocery store and bought things, and then baked a huge amount. I made: apple cider cupcakes with apple cider icing, vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting, and cheese burrekas (which are my favorite thing ever). Then, I drove to Rolla, had dinner with my friends down there, and experienced the wonder that is a vodka gimlet.
- Sunday: I drove back to Columbia to teach, and then went back to St. Louis (yeah, I know... three times in a week) for my Aunt Ruth's birthday dinner/medical school interview.
- Today: Woke up, got ready, went shopping for a new shell for my suit, and then went for my interview. I have absolutely no idea how it went. I feel like I'm just holding my breath for May 15th, when I'll hopefully start hearing some good news.
I should have known that Colin Meloy and the Decemberists would write a song that mirrors exactly how I'm feeling right now. It's been an awful week in term of physical and emotional devastation.
Everyone in and around Columbia has been very much on edge the last few days. We all know that what happened at Virginia Tech could very easily happen at Mizzou. Lacey and I talked a few days ago about how insecure our classrooms now feel - so many rooms with no emergency exits, nothing that locks from the inside, no contingency plan to speak of. It's a very frightening time to be a college student right now, and that's an unhappy fact.
We had a shooting last night a few miles from where I live. It was a continuation of a dispute between two groups of people who knew each other, townies, I'm pretty sure. The kid who died was seventeen, and it didn't happen on campus. That didn't stop all of my family (except for my grandmother *eyeroll*) from calling to see if I was alright.
There has also been a slew of fires this week. One in the apartment complex up the street caused $1.2 million in damage and left 20 people (mostly students) homeless. The apartment it started in housed some foreign grad students with limited control of English and no understanding of 911. A transformer blew up in my old dorm on Tuesday night, and they evacuated everyone. Also, Tuesday, a building in my complex apparently caught fire and there were several engines blocking the entrance to the complex, but they were all gone when I got there.
I'm tired of violence. I'm tired of fire. I'm tired of my government not protecting me.
I turned twenty-two on Friday. I'm really not much for birthdays. In fact, for most of college, I've made it a point to never tell people when my birthday was, mostly stopping at "sometime in April" if pressed really hard. This behavior is due almost entirely to the tendency for things to get really awful before and during my birthday. It's been this way since I was probably thirteen or fourteen, and mostly the "bad things" were limited to major fights with my parents. As I aged, though, these incidences grew increasingly worse:
- Failed my driving test on my sixteenth birthday
- Got into a car accident about two weeks before my 18th birthday, which precipitated a massive breakdown in relations with my father, because he wouldn't let me pay for the accident in any way, but never failed to let me forget that I wrecked his car. I decided that was fine, but then I wouldn't go to my senior prom because a dress was about as much as the deductible on the insurance and I am all about saving him money. Also wouldn't let my parents buy me a birthday present.
- This week: a horrible evaluation from one of my bosses (who clearly lacks any understanding of her role in the whole situation), frustrations with the campus program I've been planning, and being put on the "death hold" at my top choice medical school on my birthday, among other things.
And that philosophy mostly worked for the three years that I applied it. Last year was sufficiently shitty enough, without anything additional piled on. My birthday itself fell on Passover, which meant no grain liquor, and the end of Passover was followed by the impending doom of the MCATs. So, my birthday celebration/MCAT post-party was ten solid days after my birthday. And it was fine.
Twenty-one was a pretty crappy year by most standards anyway. It started off with Passover and the MCATs, and was summarily consumed by the medical school application process, which is time-consuming, exhausting, nerve-wracking, and expensive. I worked retail, which I didn't totally hate, but which didn't give me the hours that I needed. I started, and then stopped for very justified reasons, dating someone. I got to travel a lot, which was nice (Washington D.C., New York, Massachusetts, Chicago, Pennsylvania, and also somewhat North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan). But mostly the last year was not a good one. It was not the "last year of college" formative experience that everyone else seems to be having.
I enter my twenty-second year in something of a state of panic. It may be because it has not been a good week. However, it is more likely due in large part to the sense of impending doom that I feel about my future. I move out of my apartment four months from last Thursday. I look forward to living somewhere new, but right now have no sense of where I'm going to live in terms of apartments and sheer geography. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing - will it be graduate school (and then, in what and where?)? Will it be teaching in some incarnation or another? Will I be working in labs? Will I have to sell my soul to pay my rent?
I'm twenty-two years old and I've never been in love. I've been close, I think. I've been able to see it distantly from the bottom of the hill. I sometimes wonder if I'm looking in the wrong age-range, or if I've already exhausted the pool that I appear to be wading in right now. I don't know what it looks like with me in it, except for that I know I want it in the way that you see a couple holding hands, and your own hands ache to be held. I know it like that, but I don't know where or how, much less who.
I'm twenty-two years old with no discernible life plan except for wanting to be a doctor, but with seemingly very little to show for it except for the fact that I've worked my ass off for as long as I can remember. It's a goal that I want really badly, but one that would be foolish to persevere in for too long. I don't want to be accepted at 28, in school until 32, in residency until I'm 40, and then I only have a few good years to work. It's not something you can do forever. What if I want a family, or a house, or spending money? I'm starting to wonder if this isn't just G-d's way of telling me to figure something else out.
I'm extraordinarily blessed to have so many loving friends and family as I do. I'm blessed to have eyes and ears and hands, and a capable mind. I'm lucky to have professors who believe in me, and employers who do believe in me.
If I were the president, I'd have some crazy, kamikaze twelve-step program to achieving my personal success, but I don't have that wisdom right now. And it's 3AM and I'm tired.
*This concludes the crappiest birthday I've ever had*
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I go to school at the University of Missouri. I'm majoring in biochemistry, with minors in rural sociology and chemistry. I work in a laboratory that studies the way ovarian cancer and prostate cancer get past the immune system. I also work as an intern for the a religious reproductive rights organization, teach religious school on Sunday mornings, and do PR and fundraising for the campus Hillel. I'm also involved in an organization called Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom.
Right now, I'm in my last semester, so I'm taking my capstone (a hellacious research experience with a lab partner who is dumber than a box of hammers) and applying to medical schools. I think I want to do family practice in a smaller town, or perhaps specialize in OBGYN.
I love all forms of art, and do my best to make my own. I love photography. I use a Sony Cybershot digital, and I have a Canon 35 that I'm still learning how to use. I play flute and acoustic guitar, and have piccolo and piano skills. I like to doodle, and I make snide jokes and cartoons in my class notebooks.
Right now, I have a boyfriend who goes to school about 100 miles away. It's hard, and we're handling it, but per usual, I make no promises as to its longevity. The fact of my life is that I don't know where I'll be in a year. I handle the distance a lot better than he does, which has been an issue recently. I'm pretty independent, and I know that I'm a hard person to live twith. It's just a fact of being me.
I have a mommy and a daddy in St. Louis who love me very much, and a sister in Cleveland who just started college and probably loves me more. As of this writing, I have two English bulldogs, Millie and Gus, and my room at home is inhabited by a gerbil named Ethyl. My cat, Heidi, was very sick and we made the decision to end her suffering yesterday. She was my cat, as cats can be, and it was very hard and sad, especially being away from home. I have one living grandparent. I have lots of cousins who are very distantly related to me, and recently found out that a girl who I became friends with in June is one of my two first cousins. My extended family is very fragmented; my mother doesn't talk to her sister. My favorite person in the world is probably my Aunt Ruth, who isn't really my aunt. I visit her whenever I'm home, and take her grocery shopping and we eat lunch together.
So that's me, at this very moment.
