WEEK 12 - I am Not an Armchair Traveler

Travel has been, and always will be my unwavering passion, for this world is meant to be experienced in the first person. It's to be tasted and felt and smelled and heard, not experienced vicariously through books, magazines and travel documentaries.

Since childhood, I had always heard how green Ireland is. But, until I stood among Celtic crosses and monastic towers, looking across the Boin Valley, could I truly appreciate just how green the Emerald Isle really is.

And, when learning of the holocaust in school, I thought I could grasp the extent of its inhumanity, but not really. Not until I opened and walked through the iron gate at the work camp at Dachau, Germany, the gate that bears the words, "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Will Make You Free), could I understand the holocaust's horror. As the latch of that gate clicked shut behind me, I could feel the weight of the despair that must have been felt by the many people who were imprisoned and died in this camp.

In Amsterdam, Holland, I experienced the narrowness of the stairway that led to the not-so-secret hiding place of Ann Frank and her family. In Normandie, France I wondered, "just how long did it take those brave, American soldiers to crawl on their bellies across that wide expanse of sand known as Omaha Beach, as they attempted an escape from slaughter by German snipers on D-day?" On the bluff above Omaha Beach, there are 10,000 Americans buried in the Colville-sur-Mer cemetary. I have stood there solemnly and contemplated the lives of the young men in repose. France cradles these heroes in her fertile soil, entombed beneath their cold, white marble markers. She must care well for them because she owes them everything. They paid for her freedom with their guts and their blood.

In this country, you cannot appreciate the handiwork of the magnificent tool that is the Colorado River unless you stand, gripping the railing at an overlook and with your own eyes, take in the grandeur, the depth, the width and the color palette of the Grand Canyon.

The range and depth of emotion that one can experience by physically being at a place cannot be elicited by a glossy photo. An armchair traveler, I am not!

WEEK 11 - Where is Velma Now?

The physical being of my husband's mother, Velma, lives in a beautiful facility on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, however, the non-tangible thing--the spirit and essence that had always made Velma, Velma, seldom occupies this wrinkled, stoop-shouldered, 87 year-old lady. Alzheimer's is slowly taking her from us. It will, at some point, leave us with only a body to be washed and fed and clothed until it can no longer withstand the terrible toll this disease exacts on its victims.

Velma was truly a matriarch. She nearly single-handedly raised two girls and three boys (two of them identical twins-one of them my husband). Because her husband's paycheck sometimes didn't cover much more than the family's bare necessities, Velma learned how to cut the children's hair, prepare satisfying but inexpensive one-pot suppers, and stretch a meager sock and underwear budget by being first in line at the local, annual white sale.

Grandma, as I usually called Velma, was about the most strong-willed person I've ever met. It was always hard to help her cook or perform other tasks because she always wanted things to be done her way. I learned it was better to get out of her kitchen and let her do whatever it was herself.

Now, the spaghetti-shaped plaque that is forming in her brain is robbing her of the ability to do all but the simplest of things. She is nearly incapable of speech, is incontinent and doesn't always recognize those people who were most precious to her, her children. Velma's physical being is with us, but her mind comes and goes and when it leaves, I wonder what its destination is. The doctors don't know, but I hope it's with her family; vacationing at campsite number 10 at Lower Billy Creek Campground, at the far end of beautiful Huntington Lake in the Western Sierra Nevada mountains, the place she loved best.

WEEK 10 - You Can Give the Gift of Life

Each of us has the potential to give the gift of life to a stranger or someone we know by donating blood or platelets at a local hospital or American Red Cross facility. Over the years, I've taken the opportunity to donate platelets and whole blood to a number of people, some of them forever unknown to me, and some who are dear friends and colleagues.

Over a two year period, I donated whole blood and platelets to my friend and former coworker, Gary who very nearly succumbed to a particularly virulent form of cancer. Thankfully, he's fully recovered and enjoying his retirement. A donation of whole blood I made at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles to an eight-year-old girl aided the recovery of this playmate of one of my colleague's sons. Her recovery from childhood Leukemia has allowed her to rejoin her classmates, and her father can now look forward to walking her down the aisle when she's a grown woman. At UCLA I donated whole blood to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy who sustained devastating injuries when a robbery suspect intentionally rammed his police motorcycle, breaking nearly every bone in his body. I understand this lawman is making good progress in his recovery.

I'm not telling you about my donation history to elicit pats on the back. My reason for sharing these experiences is to persuade you to consider donating whole blood or platelets. When you donate blood the first time, your blood is typed and its Rh factor is determined. If you're one of the fortunate few who are Rh negative, you can donate blood to premature babies and others with poor immune systems. Imagine your blood helping a newborn baby have a chance at life. How cool is that!

A visit to the Web site of the American Red Cross can provide you with detailed information on the blood and platelet donation processes. Please consider giving the gift of life. Give blood and platelets. It feels good.

WEEK 9 - My Mother's Hands

My mother's hands are small. As a child, her hands got scratched while picking lucious, dark blackberries. Her hands deftly collected eggs from the chicken coop and plucked clean the hen destined for the Sunday-supper pot. Her grip held tight the wooden pestle that pounded cabbage and salt into earthenware crocks for a winter's-worth of kraut, and ladled thick, sweet apple butter from the cauldron boiling in the rear yard.

As a young woman, my mother left her native Kentucky for a factory in Cincinnati where her steady hands skillfully soldered transistors onto circuit boards. After marrying, her hands changed diapers and turned the pages of bedtime stories that lulled her children to sleep. Her strong hands could wield a mean hickory switch when a child required a good licking.

Then, one day, my mother's immune system decided her hands were her enemy. Arthritis ravaged her joints into deformity. Fingers became twisted, joints permanently locked--inflamed, red, swollen and excruciatingly painful. These are now hands that have a will to open jars, touch type, thread needles, and plant flowers. They have a will, but not a way. I wish for my mother, the hands of her youth.

WEEK 8 - Wondrous Wings

Oh tiny one, with wondrous wings that beat faster than the eye can see. I watch you from my garden as you take sugar water from the feeder. Sometimes you alight relaxed, and take long draughts like someone who's been long denied a cool drink. Other visits you make to the feeder are done warily, never perching. You sip quickly as you fly to and from the flower shaped opening, vigilant, ready to flee from danger.

Leonardo da Vinci studied you centuries ago, attempting to discover the secret held in the structure of your wings. The delicate wings that give you agility and speed that's never been duplicated by any human-made contraption. You tease us flat-footed, immobile mortals with your effortless passage through the air.

Once, I held one of you in the palm of my hand after you had taken your last flight in this earthly realm. Your weight was imperceptible. You were so light, no heavier than the breath expelled from a little child. I marvelled at your tiny feet and dark eyes and iridescent soft feathers. Next to the Peruvian lily, I buried you--the lily from whose blossoms you had undoubtedly sought nectar to feed your monstrous appetite. You little hummingbirds visit the feeder and the blossoms, and the blossoms and the feeder in a cycle that doesn't end but for the onset of night. Sometimes, your ceaseless diving and swooping and chirping tires me. But mostly, your wondrous, whirring wings bring me joy.

Anna's Hummingbird

WEEK 7 - Flog is Golf Spelled Backwards

Mark Twain remarked, "Golf is a good walk spoiled" and many a time I have agreed with him! Before taking my current hiatus from the game of golf, I have toiled many an hour on the links. Toiled, I say, because the Golf Gods love to sit, unheard and unseen from their vantage point and direct that little dimpled ball to do the cruelest things to the one wielding the club. The Golf Gods love to snicker at you after you've hit what you think is a solid shot over a water hazard, only to discover the drive is too short and the ball dives straight into the water. The Golf Gods think it's pretty funny too when you hit a "worm burner" and wind up in an adjacent fairway, or better yet, when your drive off the tee hits a tree or some other solid object and you wind up with NEGATIVE YARDAGE! This game coulda' made Carrie Nation drink!

Sometimes the Golf Gods are benevolent deities. They allow you to hear that wonderful plastic-on-plastic sound that's made when your putt makes one full revolution around the rim before coming to rest triumphantly at the bottom of the cup. There's those times too that the Golf Gods see to it your feet and body are in perfect alignment with your target and your swing is as sweet and smooth as The Big Easy, Ernie Els. You hit a perfect drive and feel like Tiger Woods--you hear the imaginary spectators yell out, "you're the man!" The Golf Gods bestow just enough pleasure to lure you back so they can screw with you again!

Even though I haven't played golf in several years, I have tremendous respect for the game. It's one of the few sports wherein professional players mostly earn their pay from how well they play in a particular tournament, not from how well their manager can negotiate some obscene, multi-million dollar contract. Golf is a game where a professional or regular Joe can demonstrate his ethic (or lack thereof). When nobody's looking, a player can use a "Texas toe wedge" to kick the ball to a place of advantage, or "play the ball where it lies" and take a double-bogey, if necessary, but play the shot according to the rules. A player can call a penalty on himself and show his integrity. In golf, I think honesty is the best policy 'cause the Golf Gods don't like cheaters.