Its October
Thank you, Dan for today’s update and the push to add my thoughts. Just read pieces that I hadn’t seen before, and learned there’s yet another family member to add to the important October dates: Walter Ruby (my grandfather’s) birthday, Oct. 15. So that sits right between mine, the 11th and Helga’s, the 20th. And right in there we also have Stan’s death day, the 18th. And most years we get Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur thrown in there too (as we did this year). So, all in all, it’s a heavy month for me. Very fortunately, we are blessed with a fabulous annual musical experience in Golden Gate Park – the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival -- that gives me temporary relief from the weightiness of it all.
Yesterday was Stan’s yartzeit, tomorrow is Helga’s birthday. Last week, on my birthday, I took my dear, darling, Carly to the cemetery. After being hit with a big wave of grief and tears, I realized that I’d rather be tearful and reminiscent up there in the beautiful hills where they lay than lying on my bed on my birthday. I gathered a few photos (this one I took of them on their anniversary in ___), my/ our collection of seashells, and a journal. There at the Oakmont Cemetery in Lafayette, in the Jewish section, called “compassion” I do find true comfort. It does surprise me. Who would have known? It’s not just that it is so incredibly beautiful, being in the open hills and looking down on what I call “Hodel’s Farm” (reference to our backyard neighbor in Pittsburgh). Its that it all seems right; the decision of which plot/s, our carefully crafted words on the stone (“Stanley and Helga Ruby, generous spirits and forces of life, the important thing is to not stop questioning”); that you pass Green Valley Drive and Stanley Boulevards on your way; and that Carly is free to roam. So, it only seems fitting to post this photo of their grave - our official unveiling on the blog.
To add: Suzanne & Joe, Gene Ring visits. Their house. Four little girls on the stoop. They would like it.
Videotape I listened to yesterday: Stan on 71st bday w/ camera for first time w/ his own family history; Christamas’ w/ Lani & Zach in their element; Club Cascadas (our beach timeshare home. Our last family gathering; Rosh Hashanah 2004, just 3 weeks before Stan died. Need to get these up on blog.
Was flooded with my still very vivid memory of his last week: on my 50th bday (Monday), not being able to take him home as was the discharge plan, but instead to the hospital. I drove him: my sleeping, very, very sick father w/ a failing heart and failed kidneys next to me. I remember it feeling a bit surreal; like this could be it, he could go out on me right there rolling up 280, his all time favorite highway, past SLAC, to exit for Stanford Hospital. He rallied and made it: a ‘rolling admission” (hospital variety not college) – an in an out stay for the very sick elderly who come in from nursing home and are discharged quickly back to the nursing facility. The dialysis was keeping him going, but not for much longer they predicted. We gathered family and friends. I invited Peggy, of the Good Death Institute, to meet Stan. He had been so quiet and withdrawn. I just had this sense that if he could become aware of his imminent death, he might choose to use the time he had. He had struggled so desperately his last months with is want to have time, to be awake, not to be asleep when he had so much to write, read, say, share. It had been driving him crazy; how his biorhythms were so out of wack. How the kidney failure affected his cognitive process. As a child with my own sleep issues, he had so stressed the beauty of being awake. It just seemed right to give him this expert who helps the dying person die a good death. We did it, and he did. Peggy met him on Saturday afternoon 4ish. Stan had been quiet all day, closed eyes, not responded to anyone including cousins Sandy & Mel, Joe, Gene Ring, Helga, me. Peggy held his hand, rubbed it, told him she is my friend, and came to talk about his heart. He opened his eyes. Looked straight at her and said, “my heart?” I can tell you a lot about my heart, but you should hear about my kidneys.” Within minutes Stan was alert, upright, and fully engaged, as we all know he can be, and then asked who are you? In finding out she was not a doctor, or nurse, but rather a person who talks with people before they die, Stan looked genuinely puzzled, and said, “die”. “Do you think I’m going to die?” Peggy later told me she’d never in 15 years of hospice work had ever had met a person w/ Stan’s level of denial. She found him absolutely remarkable, brilliant, funny, witty and loveable all at once. They talked about the ways of death, of ritual, of the middle ages. She talked about using time that we have in whatever way we want. Stan, said repeatedly, “I am so enjoying this. Thank you so much, Jo, for bringing her to me. But what do I call you? I need a name for you. I know, I’ll call you the ‘warner’”. He pleaded w/ Peggy to come back just as soon as possible. She said she’d be there Monday after his dialysis and could stay for a few hours. He said he would be very grateful. It was stunning. To have Stan back, his brain woken up, his intellectual curiosity aroused. I took Peggy to BART and drove an hour home. Most incredible was that Stan was bright on the phone in the morning, and when I arrived Sunday afternoon, he was reading Science journal and Time magazine.
Enter all stuff in his box downstairs that was in his bedside table. What he was reading. Writing.
Put what he said last night. My eulogy.
