Cada año tengo dos tradiciones para esta maravillosa época del año: montar un Nacimiento que mi hermana Pimpollito hizo y me regaló; Es muy pequeño y lo hizo hace muchas lunas. Este año, uno de mis asistentes lo instaló e incluyó un simple nacimiento de madera que mi madre me dio hace un par de años.
La segunda tradición es ver “It’s a Wonderful Live”, lo que me hace darme cuenta de lo preciosa que la vida es… y siempre me hace llorar. Como canta José Feliciano,les deseo a ustedes y a sus seres queridos:
…Feliz Navidad, Próspero año y felicidad.
…I wanna wish you a merry Christmas, from the bottom of my heart…
Just as I have pointed out in years past, most Spaniards and Latin Americans won’t wish you a “Happy New Year” but a prosperous one. I guess if you have a prosperous year, it will be a happy one. After the hardships of 2020, we all deserve a prosperous 2021.
Very few days of 2020 have been great; And they have all involved seeing family and friends, specially my mother and sister, and my children (even if it was on video) and their respective boyfriend/girlfriend. Alas, I won’t be physically seeing them for the holidays because of the coronavirus, like a majority of people around the world. I’ll be happy with group video calls, hopefully including one with my college buddies.
This year has not been kind to me: It all began in May when my Mom (who started living with me since 2019) had her flight to the US cancelled, from a visit to her native Spain, because of covid-19 restrictions implemented one week before her return flight. Then on 9/11 my divorce from Mik became final after 37 years of wonderful marriage, and alas 2½ years of legal separation. Unfortunately, I lost a step-brother in my native Venezuela (QEPD Pablo Jose) and a close friend who had retired to his dream home in Dana Point (RIP Vince) to covid-19. I also lost my dear mother-in-law (RIP Faye) who thankfully passed away peacefully in her sleep.
But even though 2020 was an awful year, I also had some great days: Every Monday morning I have a video call with my Mom in Spain and my Sister in Venezuela. I had lunch with my Daughter and her boyfriend on Thanksgiving, and then had an unexpected video call with my Son (who lives in NorCal) at the end of the day. I was also introduced to his beautiful girlfriend. Just last week, I had a Zoom call with some of my high-school classmates; We set up a WhatsApp group and have been posting all kind of messages. Even though I keep in regular touch with three of them, I had not been in contact with most of these people in 45 years —As opposed to the US, in Venezuelan high schools, you stay together with about 40 people in your ‘section’ and the professors come to your classroom; You develop life-long friendships with most of these people—
Even though I conduct most of my contract work via emails and phone calls, I have a cherished ‘drop-by’ routine when I visit the Irvine office of Spireon in the middle of the week, seeing everyone shortly, and meeting with the engineering and managerial staff for Intellectual Property matters. So the WFH reality has not really impacted me but I realize what a hermit I’ve become. I live by a wonderful Town Center, and I used to run errands or just be outside almost daily, on my wheelchair (I’m handicapped with restricted use of my hands and arms because of a skiing misfortune). Now I just go outside once or twice a week, when is completely necessary and almost always acompanied by one of my caregivers. For work, I also conduct a quarterly IP Committee meeting and had not been able to schedule them; Just a few days ago I was able to conduct a productive Zoom meeting and get IP matters back on-track for the year.
When my old company PROCON (PROtect & CONnect) got acquired by a VC several years ago, my old friend and CEO was ousted and he formed a new company (Advantage Automotive Analítics) that currently competes in some markets with Spireon. His new company is also in Irvine and I would visit its offices every couple of months since I have many wonderful friendships with ex-coworkers, who ended up working at AAA. My old boss is also responsible for my new career in IP from being a “glorified hacker” to CIO (Career Is Over!) I miss visiting AAA and even though one could qualify these visits as akward, that’s another routine that I enjoyed and was not able to do in 2020.
I currently live by myself and none of my lifestyle would be possible, without my wonderful caregivers. I usually have daily help from 9am to 3pm but what gives me great flexibility, is to rely on a night caregiver that transfers me to bed and helps me with my end-of-day routines. She is outstanding as are all my other caregivers!
When I compare my situation with other people who are even able-bodied, I realize how grateful I should be. Even though 2020 has been an awful year, I am thankful for my health, my family and friends, my caregivers and my co-workers; And for everything I have been able to accomplish this year.
I’m becoming an old man; I find that nothing puts the day in perspective than wake-up routines. One of the first routines I do is to check with my mom to see what phone wallpaper she’s chosen for the day. When I first suffered my skiing injury, I was in Craig hospital for four months and she would call me daily to inquire on my well-being with an invariable: “How are you feeling today?” At the time, she lived by herself in Solares, a little town in northern Spain close to where she was born, and I would also worry about her well-being. I decided that instead of asking the same question every day, we could start our chats by playing a little game: I installed two apps on her phone that changes her wallpaper to whatever she chooses: An astronomy picture or a scenic/nature one; APOD got real cute today and decided to celebrate Halloween by publishing these pictures today.
Courtesy of https://www.getdailyart.com
Another one of my wake-up routines (and the last one before checking my daily schedule) is to check out DailyArt which chose “Memento Mori Mosaic from Pompeii” to celebrate Halloween and I found it very appropriate:
“This Roman mosaic from one of the houses in Pompeii (it was placed in the triclinium, which was a formal dining room) represents the Wheel of Fortune which, as it turns, can make the rich (symbolized by the purple cloth on the left) poor and the poor (symbolized by the goatskin at right) rich; in effect both states are very precarious, with death never far and life hanging by a thread: when it breaks, the soul (symbolized by the butterfly) flies off. And thus are all made equal! The theme, like the skeletons on the silverware in the treasure of Boscoreale, was intended to remind diners of the fleeting nature of earthly fortunes.”
As I get older, I find that I have to plan my weeks in advance. Not only do I rely on my caregivers, I also have a lot of people that rely on me and having a calendar event or reminder, allows me to schedule my time properly.
I like to have a main theme that I rotate for the weeks ahead and I find that these three sentences put the coming weeks in perspective:
Learn from the Past
Do in the Present
Plan for the Future
This week (44th of the year) is important: Not only do we merrily celebrate Halloween, but also Daylight Savings Time ends. And of course, it’s “Do in the Present!”
If you have previously visited my blog, you know I wrote with great passion about the original 9/11 in A Change of Seasons.
This year, I feel like a personally devastating 9/11 is happening to me. You see, on Labor Day I met with my paralegal; she was notarizing my signature to end my marriage of 37 years! I am a romantic at heart, and even though she could file the final divorce papers that day, I asked her to wait until 9/11 so I could say that I was legally married to beautiful Mik for 37 years —Mik: nickname for my ex-wife Sally, that I gave her after she corrected me; her maiden last name McFerren is pronounced MikFerren and not MacFerren— Even though we were legally married at the Santa Ana courthouse on 8/12/1983, very few people knew about it, we consider our actual wedding day to be 9/10/1983, when we were married in the suburbs of Akron, Ohio, at a little church, where Mik’s parents, family and friends worshipped. We actually did not celebrate with our California friends until we returned from Ohio —We hosted a great party cruising on the Kon Tikiin beautiful Newport Beach harbor—
The last two and a half years have been awful, but we had 35 years of wonderful marriage. So why are we divorcing? It seems I was getting too mean! Mik would disregard my skiingmisfortune handicap and make me late for all my personal and business appointments; a trait that does not define me! As a matter of fact, people know that if I make an appointment with them and they’re five minutes late and I don’t hear from them, I simply leave. I resolved that issue by telling Mik that my appointments were ½ hour earlier. But I am the male of the species and I have to take responsibility in the matter: We mismanaged a lot of money, and Mik decided that the best solution for my immediate future, was to retire me to a nursing home; Of course, after the wonderful life that I had been leading, I didn’t like this proposition at all. That and some financial decisions which I didn’t agree with, turned me mean again and she filed for a legal separation after avoiding marriage counseling that I had proposed. Because of my condition, I might end up in a nursing home after all, but at the age of 55, I wasn’t ready for it. I guess we have irreconcilable differences.
But not all should be considered doom and gloom; We have two (adult) children: A handsome young man and a beautiful girl (I know she is now a young lady, but she will always be my beautiful girl) . And I was able to provide a great life for them and Mik. They grew up in heavenly SoCal and I have always been able to provide great homes for them. Our children are not saddled with student loans and they attended well-known universities, including studies abroad. I was lucky to be able to provide financial resources, most of the time, and Mik worked as she pleased or not at all whenever possible. We were also lucky to have exotic vacations in my native Venezuela, Spain and Hawaii as well as the beautiful US southwest. All my material accomplishments were always accompanied with immeasurable love.
No matter what the future holds, I will keep telling my doctors and therapists, our families and friends and most people I meet that I wouldn’t be alive without the love and attention that Mik provided me during my recuperation from my skiing misfortune. I have always been a pretty active guy challenging myself in marathonic sports events and it could not have been easy to see your spouse almost die and with many tubes coming out of his body while in the ICU and reduced to a severely phisically handicapped person thereafter.
So what will I do know? Will I reinvent myself? 2020 has taught us not to make detailed plans because they can be unexpectedly derailed. One thing that I know for certain is that where two magnificent towers stood side by side, now a gleaming skyscraper has been proudly built. Alas, it stands by itself!
Coutesy of http://www.nspnvt.org/sci_info/disreflexia.html
What happened? I wear a Foley catheter that gets changed in my home, every three weeks, by a specialized nurse. Today, a nurse that I have only met once before, attempted what should have been a routine procedure four times, without hitting my bladder and without getting my urine to flow; She knew it was time to stop when my penis started bleeding (ouch!). I would had to wait a couple of hours for her emergency backup, so my caregiver and I decided to call 911.
911 and the ambulance drivers were very professional and transported me to Mission Hospital since I knew I was going into dysreflexia.
What did they do at Mission Hospital? After taking my vitals, which were very elevated by then, an experienced nurse was able to get my catherer changed and my urine flowing on the first try! All my vitals went back to normal right away. After analyzing the situation with my caregiver, we think the in-home nurse inflated the balloon (that keeps my catherer in the bladder) prematurely and that’s why I started bleeding.
Are you okay now? After being transported by ambulance back to my home, I’m in my bed waiting for my night caregiver. Everything is back to normal!
Did you have to wear a mask? That is the first thing that 911 did. Everyone was wearing masks and they put one on me the second they arrived in my home.
Were you alone? Because of Covid-19 protocols nobody was allowed to be with me or visit me! One of the things that really impressed me was how professional every one was; The 911 guys, the EMT’s, the nurses and the doctors. They weren’t doing their job because of a paycheck; They were doing it because they understand how much we rely on them and because they truly wants us to feel better and maybe even save our lives. What an extraordinary set of individuals!
Was this the worst case scenario? Without over-dramatizing the situation, because of Covid-19 protocols, I think it was close. Other than passing away into another plane of existence, I cannot think of a routine procedure turning into a worst case scenario. I wish I was into Eastern religions like my father was, and I believed in karma, reincarnation and nirvana. But I believe YOLO!
As most of my friends know, Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite rock bands —Some others include Supertramp (go figure!), The Rolling Stones and Jimmy Hendrix; I’m really an old-school Venezuelan— One of my friends remembered the fact and he played some Led Zeppelin songs on the piano, that he had rehearsed for a recent end-of-year college-friends get-together (What a guy).
I have three citizenships: Venezuelan American and Spanish (Thanks to a “Historical Memory” Spanish law and to my maternal grandfather who fought in the Spanish Civil War); But I wish I was a Californio. California, specifically SoCal, has defined my adult life, and I consciously made the decision to study at UC Irvine and to live here.
Just today, I changed the ringtone for my (ex?) wife to this part of the song:
