Little Friend of Mine

19 May 2017

Little friend of mine how you'd make me laugh Hysterically, I lived for that We had a lot of fun Sick and unconventionally Straying from the norm Everybody knows how you'd question life Philosophize and lose sleep at night I know how that can be I've been there before and now it feels like I'll be visiting again. Look at what you've done. But you don't have to say you're sorry 'cause I forgive the ones I love I'll just look forward to tomorrow But look at how I cry. I"m pretty sick of all these tears I know this wasn't planned at all. Still I wish that you were here. Little friend of mine how you'd drive me nuts Abuse your mind and push your luck But how I adored your brain We had something between us-- we were both slightly insane. Little baby brother, I know you know I'll never let your memory go Still I feel like I should say Christmas might be difficult but I think that everyone will be OK. Just look at what you've done. But I don't want you to worry. 'Cause everybody fucks up now and then. It's just a part of being at an early age. But look at how we cry. So much we want to scream Look, I know you were a fan and all But this is too much like James Dean. I know you were a fan of him But this is too much like James Dean. Link to video of song

Quote of the Day It wasn't just her fingers playing, her whole body was a representation of every single note that came streaming out of her heart, represented on the keyboard. I longed to be in that place so badly, to see her face and to watch her fingers caress the keys and fight with the keys and make love with the keys and wrestle and struggle. ~ David, from The Piano

Where IS That?

I spent the greater part of yesterday looking for things.

I have lived/worked in my office for more than 40 years and though it looked like a hoarder's domain, I knew where everything was.  Even now, with the office completely empty I find myself starting to go in there to get something or to put something things away because I know exactly where it is supposed to go.

But nothing is there.  It is everywhere else. Ned did a great job of making sure that everything I needed was accessible, but I'm old...they are not in the right place.  Envelopes, for example, go in a box on the floor to the left of my desk, where I can reach them easily.  I spent about 15 minutes yesterday looking for the envelopes when, in fact, he had put them on the cabinet right behind my computer monitor, which is in plain sight and easily accessible...only since the monitor was hiding them, it took me that long to see them.  (They are now back on the floor to the left of my desk where I can reach them easily.)

You don't think of which things you're going to need close at hand until you go looking for some oddball thing that you often look for and it's not there.  I spent a long time looking for the binder which holds the pocket letters I've received and the one(s) I'm currently working on.  I searched everywhere.  I even wrote to Ned to see if he remembered where he put it.  About a half an hour, and much frustrated tearing of my hair, I finally found it.  He had put it in the place I was least likely to look for it...right where I'd left it.  It had been on the kitchen table and to make space on the table for Walt and me to eat, he had moved it from one side of the table to the other and it was slightly covered by something else.  I felt pretty stupid.

He is coming by today to start getting the walls ready to be painted, but then he'll be gone for a week, so it will be awhile before it's time to think about moving all of this back.  By that time I will have this temporary office all set up efficiently and it will be "mine" again.  But in the meantime I continue to hunt for stuff.

My desk has now also become a food preparing station.  I found myself shelling peas on the desktop with the keyboard moved out of the way, and when time came for dinner. I ate at the desk because there really is only place for one of us to eat at the table.  It's going to be great when it's all done and it was so long in the coming.

---

We had a gourmet dinner last night. May 18 is the day I always cook Kraft dinner, which was one of David's favorite foods.  In fact, at his memorial service, which was a pot luck, we made a huge bowl of Kraft dinner.   think only family ate any of it. (I chose not to make another of his favorites:  peanut butter and tuna sandwiches!) Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of David's death.  It just doesn't seem possible that he has been gone almost as long as he lived.  It was 20 years ago...and it was only yesterday.

---

Last night we went to see Motown, the Musical, which is the story of Berry Gordy and the creation and rise of Motown records and a whole genre of music.

When talking to me about the upcoming show, my editor wrote, "I can't wait to read it [my review]. I've been wanting to see this one. I love Motown music -- always have. A lot of it was largely before my time, but for some reason it's always got my toes tapping. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that The Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" was the number one song in the nation the day I was born."

I was less enthusiastic.  I checked the show, which contains parts of 68 Motown recordings, to see how many would be familiar to me:  5.  5 out of 68.  I was not a fan of Motown (or most rock genres of the time).

So this was a difficult show for me and it will be a hard review to write because I don't really know what I'm talking about, though I will definitely not paint myself as any sort of an expert in Motown music.

For me, the overwhelming things about the show were that (a) it was extraordinarily long ... two hours and 45 minutes, which is longer than just about every other musical I've seen and (b) it was so loud I actually had to plug my ears with my fingers.  I haven't decided how I want to handle that because this is the era of loud rock concerts and admitting that I longed for ear plugs brands me instantly as an old fuddy duddy...which I am.

But the audience was enthusiastic, the costumes were gorgeous, the dancing energetic and very good so it will be a good review.  As each of the various groups came on stage, the Temptations, the Vandellas, the Commodores, etc, the crowd would break into delighted applause.  In fact, I couldn't identify any group except the Jackson 5, which was easy because Michael was a small child.  I'm going to have to pull out all of my critic tricks to get this review written because I want to give the show the good review it deserves.

Bottlecap Bingo

I came across this letter on my computer today.  I don't remember when I typed it from the handwritten original, but it was a letter sent from David to Tom sometime in the 1990s.  He talks about a game the kids invented which they played with their grandmother.  I loved the letter not only because it shows what a good writer David was, but because it comes from a time when he was alive and my mother had all her marbles.

Hey TQ, T-Cute,

Have you ever heard of the game, bottle cap bingo? It's a very challenging, high wagering game. In case you don't know of it, let me give you some history;

There was this one day, I think it was Jeri's Birthday party at our parents' house and folks were millin' around, drinkin' brews out of the bottle and generally having a pleasant, socializing afternoon. Well, a coupla the gang, I believe it was Dave Anderson, Joel Bass-loser and maybe a couple others, were just absent-mindedly tossing bottle caps at the hole in the center of the patio table in the back yard (you know, the hole where the umbrella is supposed to go) while they yammered away, most likely about pooh and stupid stuff like that. Well, gradually the scenario escalated into these dumb musicians of the dumbest band on the planet taking careful aim and flicking bottle caps at the hole in the center of the table. Well, you know what happened next. Rules were developed, teams were formed, and wagers were placed. The party then became nothing but a bottle cap bingo tournament and it went on well into the evening.

Well, brother T., mother's day was a coupla days ago. The grandmas were there, Norm was there, all the kids (except the lame San Louis one) were there. Can you guess what happened? Oh what a wacky family. Here's the funny thing--well there are lots of funny things, but here's part of it. It started out with me, Jeri, Norm and the Big G. Rynders. Grams is babbling on about how much she sucks and that she doesn't really want to play. Man, that woman is aces! We're in one game and Grandma is my partner and we're down to Norm and Jeri, like, four to eight (you play to nine to win, but if you go over nine you go back down to six (there's a three point shot that can take you over nine (kinda like tip-in, you know?))). Well, it's Grandma's turn and she stealthily lines up her shot and then--bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Money machine, baby! And we're standin' up slappin' five across the table, givin' our opponents the old "facial discracial" bit. She rules, man.

And then Grandma goes inside, and I need a new teammate, so we're trying to convince Marta to play, but she just DOESN'T want to play. Says she's lame and she won't have any fun. But we convince her and she hesitantly sits down to a game. So we start taking our warm ups and she can't make any shots and she's all pouting and looking like she just doesn't want to be playing. But then she hits a three-pointer and she gets that little magic bottle cap bingo sparkle behind her eyes. Slippery slope, man. The next thing, she's out there for, like, an hour and half. I finally go inside and when I come out again she's made up variations and is ready to wager her pugs on the game, ya know?

So, what it comes down to, Tom, is that I think the game is some kind of alien species, trying to take over the world. I mean, look at the history; it developed out of nowhere, it eventually sucked everybody into it to the point that the party was nearly forgotten, and now tournaments are being scheduled, variations are being made, casinos are being planned, and listen to how stupid I am. I think I'm just gonna stop talking because the further I go on in this letter, the more I feel like a fool. Forgive me.

Love,
Davacious

The Birthdays

I found this video the other day.  (I tried to embed it but for some reason that didn't work, though it should have.)  If you don't want to go to YouTube and watch the video yourself, it's a video of David, Jeri and Paul, sitting on the couch (holding pictures of Tom and Ned, who couldn't be there) and singing "My Favorite Things" with lyrics I rewrote to commemorate The Pinata Group. That's David on the guitar.

I had all sorts of mixed feelings watching it. I thought I would be emotional and yeah, emotions welled up.  But one thing that struck me very forcibly was something I said to David shortly before he died.

We were joking about all the photos and videos I take and I told him "that's OK--you can die and I probably won't even notice because I have so many videos of you around." In retrospect, that was a terrible thing to say, given that he was dead not long after.

But as I watched this video, I realized that maybe it wasn't so bad after all.  Here they were, alive again, singing together with Jeri.  The video made me smile and though I wish to heck they were here, the videos are a comfort because for a few minutes, they are back, alive, whole and the family is all together again.

We're coming up on Birthday Time.  Paul's birthday is tomorrow and David's is a week later.  Paul would have been 46 and David 43.  They are permanently stuck at 30 and 24.  

I look at Ned's grey hair--actually he's getting white hair.  He has more than I do.  And I see the look of a middle aged man.  I wonder what his brothers would look like at 46 and 43.  

Paul was planning to move to L.A. with his wife and become a movie star.  What would he be doing now?  Waiting tables?  Working in the post office?  Or would he be one of that small percent that actually work in the business?  We'll never know. I feel cheated because I always wanted to watch him win his Oscar and stand there and thank his mom for all her support.

And David.  He was in the process of getting his life together.  He had tried Sacramento City College and Chico State and gave up.  After a period of working bagging groceries, he was talking about moving to Santa Cruz and going to school there.  He still hadn't figured out what he wanted to be when he grew up.  But what a mind that kid had.  If he found the right path, he could have done anything.

Instead the two of them are lying in a grave in the Davis cemetery and it just seems so unfair that life has moved on without them.

After so many years (19 and 16), the birthdays and the anniversaries aren't as wrenching as they were in the beginning.  You never "get over" the death of a child and you do, as people wanting to say something comforting after they died, "remember them" (as if you could forget!).  You are forever changed.  They become a part of the person you are now and you go on about your business.  You don't wear sack cloth and ashes forever, you don't shut the curtains and assume the fetal position for the rest of your life, but you laugh and have good times and bad times while a piece of your brain includes them in all family activities, though you don't really talk about them much.

We'll probably go out for sushi on Paul's birthday.  We've been doing that for 16 years now.  Who knows what we'll do on Dave's, but we'll raise a glass of wine...or water...or whatever and toast them.

And then we wait until the death anniversaries roll around a couple of months later.

Happy birthday, guys

Changing Seasons

We are nearly at the end of "death season" around here.   It's not as emotional as it once was, but it starts around Thanksgiving and ends on the 18th of May, with the anniversary of David's death.  It includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, all the February birthdays (including Paul's and David's), Paul's anniversary on April 20 and David's.

In the earlier years, I always heaved a sigh of relief on May 19, knowing that I was more or less free and clear of the more painful emotions until Thanksgiving rolled around again.  It's not that anybody really speaks of "death season" and I don't know if anybody else feels it as I have these past 17 years, but I'm just always aware of being in that pocket of dates.

When I was at my mother's this week, she pulled out a box of journals.  Without benefit of computer or internet, she has nonetheless kept a daily journal for as long as I have known her.  They are hardbound books that she fills in pencil with her neat handwriting which, at 93, is still neater than mine. 

Many years ago she told me that when she left my father, she threw out all the journals that she had been keeping for the 35 years of their marriage because she wanted no more reminders of that unhappy time. I was disappointed to hear that her written history of so many years had just disappeared.  But she has little sentimentality about things like that and, in fact, after I left home she had thrown away my written diaries because they were so much clutter and I didn't live there any more so obviously I must not have wanted them.  Such a shock when I realized she had done that.  I still think about that little plaid covered book in which I recorded my thoughts and feelings, safely (I thought) hidden by the little lock that closed the book, until I found out my parents had been reading it anyway.

My mother showed me the journals that she had in the box and said she would just toss them and let someone burn them.  I asked if I could have them, and she gave them to me.  I pulled out the volume from 1996, our Very Bad Year, and turned to May 18 to read the entry she wrote on that day.

Bad Day Today, she headed the page, continuing...

Went to Hanna's [her hairdresser] at 9:00, then did some shopping, then home.  Got a phone call from Dave's friend Brodie right after I got home, saying Dave had been in a serious accident and was in ICU at SF General.  I dropped everything and was the first in the family to get there.  He was already brain dead, but on life support.  The big deal was to find Bev and Walt in New York and the kids in Disneyland. [The kids had done a concert in L.A. the night before and the band was celebrating at Disneyland.  It is amazing to me how quickly Disneyland security rounded them all up -- helped, of course, by the fact that they were wearing Lawsuit t-shirts]

Tom arrived around 5:30.  After tests Tom and I witnessed   he was pronounced brain dead at 6:28.  We had located everyone by then. 

The 3 kids arrived from from L.A. around 10:30 and after all of us telling Dave goodbye, I brought them home with me.  They kept Dave alive all nite for transplants tomorrow.  Bev and Walt flying home tomorrow.  Got the kids all bedded down for the nite.

When I started reading that entry, she asked me what she had said and I read it aloud to her, surprising myself by breaking down and crying.  I didn't think it would affect me so strongly after 17 years.

In thinking back to that terrible night, I think she has her times wrong.  The kids could not have arrived as late as 10:30 because Ned called us in New York, from the hospital, to let us know what had happened.  We were at my friend Ron's house, waiting for a party to start and I remember that it had just turned dark outside when I was talking to a nurse, giving permission to harvest Dave's organs....but maybe it is my memory which is faulty.

On the following day, she wrote...

Got the call from the transplant team at 7:30 that they were taking Dave to the operating room.  Got the kids fed and Bev and Walt arrived at 10:00.  What a day.  They were all here all day going over things.   Everyone so broken up over Dave.  We just can't believe he's gone.  The phone was busy all day.  They finally left for Davis at 5:00...

But the interesting thing was what she writes next...she talks about her stepchildren arriving to welcome visitors from Holland, who had just flown in for a little vacation, and the next several days' entries are all about entertaining the Rynders family, going out for meals, shopping, etc.  Not a single word about Dave or us, but only of entertaining her other family.  It's not until the 24th that she picks up the story of David.

Today was a good and bad day.  Ida picked me up at 8:00 and we drove up to Davis for Dave's memorial.  Padre [that would be the family priest, Father Joe O'Looney, who made me so furious that day!] conducted the family services at the funeral home and the cemetery.  He left for Marin and we went back to Bev's for a quick lunch and visit with the family, then the real memorial the kids arranged started at 3:00. 

It was just fantastic.  They took us all through every emotion imaginable.  From laughter to choking tears but all filled with so much love and talent from all those wonderful young people.  About 450 people there.  What a tribute to Dave.

Ida and I left around 6:00, stopped at Ida's son's home in Fairfield so didn't get home until 8:00.  The crowd [the Rynders family] was here after a day in the city.  I got them coffee and dessert and we talked over the day.

In all the most emotional times of her life, even the death of her grandson, my mother has always been, first and foremost, the good hostess.

Take My Heart--Please

I've been thinking about David tonight.

We watched a show called Mobbed, which I had never heard of and which I don't see myself ever watching again, but I had been on Twitter tonight and my twitter feed was flooded with requests from Howie Mandel (the host) to watch it, and after it started on the East coast, from people who were raving about it.

The hype worked.  I decided to find out what it was all about.

It's a reality show and I guess that they choose someone who wants to honor someone--or surprise someone--and build an hour program around making that into an extravaganze.  I saw that Part 2 tonight was a girl who had a crush on someone at work and wanted to let him know she was falling in love with him.  I think a proposal might have been involved and from the look on his face, it might have gone badly, but we only watched the first hour.

The first subject was a 75 year old fire chief whose daughter wanted to let him know how much he was loved and to show him how many lives he had changed throughout his lifetime.  The tribute was prompted by her sister's death in an auto accident many years ago and the parents' decision to donate her organs (at the end of the show they met the daughters of an organ recipient who had lived an extra 17 years due to the kidneys she had been given and I think the last one was the heart recipient, though I couldn't understand what she said, but she did tap her chest and it seems likely that she was the heart recipient. The girl had been given the heart as a baby and was now an adult. 

Before that introduction there were practical jokes and lots of music and dancing with everybody waving their arms in the air in the manner of a last act finale.  It was all very touching and I was sobbing by the end of it.

Which is why I was thinking about David.

When David decided to run his car (or, more accurately, Jeri's car) into a light post in front of our old meat market in San Francisco, Walt and I were in New York, where we had gone for a Jose Carreras concert with our friend Barbara.   The other kids were at "the happiest place on earth," Disneyland, following a concert the night before, where after a phone call to security, the whole band was rounded up within half an hour (they were wearing Lawsuit t-shirts).

Walt and I were at a party at our friend Ron's apartment.  He was going to introduce us to a bunch of CompuServe friends I'd never met and when "the" phone call came, we were waiting for the first guests to arrive.  As the guests started arriving, Walt and I were in the back room talking to Ned and my mother, at David's bedside.

The kids flew home immediately and were with David in the hospital when he died.  We got the first plane out of New York, but not until 6 a.m. the next morning.  It was a long night in our hotel room, where none of us could sleep.

But the most surreal thing of all was talking to a disembodied voice of the "transplant coordinator" and giving her permission to remove our youngest child's organs so that some other person could use them.

There was never any question about whether we wanted to do that or not.  It has always been comforting, in the past 15+ years to think that perhas still somewhere in the world bits and pieces of David are still functioning and keeping someone else alive.

When my sister was murdered in 1971 it was before the age of transplants.  The only part of a person that could be used were the eyes and my father was LIVID at the thought of anybody cutting up "his" daughter.  My mother regretted that for years afterwards, thinking of two people whose sight might have been restored using Karen's corneas.

We heard from one of the transplant recipients.  I think it was whoever got one of David's kidneys.  I don't remember anything about that person now, except I think it was a middle-aged man.  I always wondered about the heart recipient. 

The transplant team promised us annual updates on how the organs were doing, but after the first year, we never heard from them again.  But that was OK.   The organs weren't David's any more and maybe I'm happier thinking that his heart still beats in the body of someone else, whether it does or not.

As I said, I won't be watching Mobbed again and I'm not entirely certain that the honoree was all that happy with being the center of attention tonight, but I am glad I watched it and could think back on donating David's organs and the comfort that act brought us.

We wanted to donate Paul's organs, too, but since the circumstances surrounding his death meant he had to be a "coroner case," it wasn't possible, though we signed a release to donate whatever could be used (skin cells, and other things for research).

If you have never seriously considered organ donation, whether for yourself or for your loved ones, I really recommend that you take some time to think about it, talk with your loved ones, and let your wishes be known to those who will take care of you after you die.

God's Still Laughing

I started out the week talking about how if you wanted to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. That was the day that my plans had been to work in the book store, until my mother called to ask me to take her to the doctor, and I ended up spending the day and night in San Rafael.

I certainly had no plans to spend last night cleaning my office, disconnecting the computer and trying to set up this lap top to use while the computer is off in ICU until the virus can be removed.

And my plan for today had been to attend a 5-hour photography seminar north of Sacramento. It was to start at 4 so Walt and I planned to have our sushi dinner in honor of David's birthday tomorrow instead.

First I called my mother and was pleased to learn that she is starting to feel better. The meds are finally kicking in.

Next, I took the computer to my guru in Woodland. Fortunately, I already had the laptop set up here, so I didn't have to beg him to get the computer done speedily...just get it finished.

I came home, took a nap, and then went to get the camera I was going to learn on and get ready to go to the class. The battery in the camera was dead, so I went to change it, but I couldn't open the door where you put the battery.

That little slider at #1 was corroded and immovable and it was impossible to slide the battery door in the #2 direction. I tried and tried and Walt tried and tried and it just would not budge.

By this time I really wasn't feeling like going to the class anyway and so I decided not to go at all. I dropped a note to that effect to Facebook and someone suggested that I use a paste of baking soda and water on the lever. I did and miraculously I was able to free it up so that it slide back and forth, but I still couldn't move the battery door. I guess I'm going to have to take it to a camera shop, but there is none in Davis, nor in nearby Woodland, so I'll have to wait until I'm next going to Sacramento during the daytime.

In the meantime I had a call from the guru who told me that my computer was filled with so much dust and debris that it had been in danger of starting a fire, should a spark erupt near it. I don't know how often you open your computer to dust the inside, but he says it should be done twice a year. He said that the two memory sticks were so covered with dust that it explained why I've been having memory problems on the computer and that once he got all the dust cleared away, it showed that I had triple the usable memory than I had before. Who knew? Turns out Walt has cleaned the inside of his computer but never thought to suggest that to me. I honestly never thought about doing it, it being an enclosed system and all.

Anyway, he rattled on and on, as computer geeks do, explaining things that went way over my head because I don't have the technical lingo, but something about the CMOS burning out and his replacing it (I read the explanation of CMOS on Wikipedia and I'm more confused than ever...anyway the replacement will be less than $5.) He will get on eradicating the viruses starting on Monday and will call me next week. Thank goodness I am comfortable with this laptop.

While I was talking to the guru, Walt's sister called from the road and said she would be here in about half an hour. Walt invited her to go to a Japanese restaurant with us, which she was happy to do.

We went to Osaka Sushi in Woodland and had a lovely dinner, though I ended up not eating sushi after all.

This was on the "senior menu" and was just the right amount. We remembered David and enjoyed our food before coming back home.

Rather than face the dogs eagerly awaiting us at the front door. Alice Nan decided to just get in her car and head to her next stop, their brother's house, where she will watch the Super Bowl before heading back to Santa Barbara again.

I have no plans for tomorrow, which is probably better, since if I had, who knows what sort of monkeywrench God would toss into the works at me!

The one thing everyone remembers about Dave was his big smile.
Happy birthday, David, wherever you are...

1974

It was 1974.

It was the terrible 2s.

We had no way of knowing he would live only twenty-two more years. The following are excerpts from my diary, written when I was seven years older than he ever got to be.

I'm afraid my baby is showing all the negative aspects of terrible two-ism. I've said for years that he was born a terrible two, but I forgot that the worst aspect of this time is the sudden insistence on independence. As far as mischief goes, actually he's better than, say, 6 months ago. It's hard to believe that sometimes, but I think his attacks on Tom are fewer (only 500 a day rather than 1,000) and he does seem to be able to play with the older kids--and being articulate in speech (more or less) does help. But what is driving me up the wall is the to-be-expected 'I do it' stage.

Going anywhere with him is getting to be a real pain. Here I looked forward to just having David at home so we could do things together, but now I find it is more frustrating than anything. Getting out of the car he gets furious if I offer a helping hand ('I jump'). Keeping him out of the freezer has become a major project. Especially when there is something like ice cream or popsicles in it.

He is still terribly cute. The other night when I let him come and sit in my lap until he fell asleep, his face positively shone and I must admit I was so glad I had done that rather than force him to sleep somewhere else. It was such a special type of look.

He has invented yet another brand of mischief. He has learned how to take apart a pen. This is TERRIBLE It's hard enough finding ANY pen around here most of the time, but now when you DO find one, it's scattered around the house. This morning I came upon him with all the innards to the pen in his hand and when I reproached, 'oh, David...' he gave me his wide-eyed innocent star and said, 'I didn't.'

* * *

David took apart the telephone this afternoon and when I found him with it dangling from his hand, he looked at me very innocently and said, "I didn't--Daddy did it.' He also jumped on Tom's stomach and when I yelled at him, this tiny fury-filled figure pointed at me and shouted 'I hate you' and then ran to hit me."

* * *

Last night I was nursing David on my bed and he suddenly stopped and said 'Wait--I go get a drink--save my nurse--don't zip up my nurse.'

Today at Mass, David put $1 in the collection basket -- and tried to take $2 out!

David fell the other day--not seriously hurt--but I started to say something to him as he was dusting himself off and he said, "That's OK, Mom. I all right. Don't worry about it."

"Mommeeee!"
(My very favorite memory of Baby David)

* * *

David was fooling around while nursing the other day and laughingly told me that my "nurse" had chocolate milk in it.

* * *

Tom and David look so cute right now. They just got dressed--David came down wearing baggy jeans, a shirt which he put on upside down (and got very angry when I tried to tell him that the neck did NOT go around his waist!) and the polo hat we got at the fair. Tom is in jeans, a sweatshirt and his jacket and Ned's baseball cap. When we got David turned around, Tom turned to Dave and said, 'C'mon, Dave--let's go play football' and they both swaggered outside.

The business of Tom and David is really interesting. Suddenly they have become "best friends." And for a couple of kids who have hated each other for two years, this is quite a switch. They sit together at mealtimes (cause no end of problems because suddenly David is the most popular person to sit with and EVERYBODY wants to sit next to David--so at least two people cry at every dinner) and Tom keeps asking David, "You're my best friend, right?" to which David responds with an enthusiastic "right!"

Parents of small children, cherish these times, even the bad times. They go so quickly and you never know from day to day how much more time you'll have with each other. I hope it's a long, happy life. But you never know... Don't waste these precious years.

Peggy Fixed it!!!

I knew there was a reason I kept that girl around.

Peggy called this afternoon, to wish me well on tomorrow's surgery and to offer suggestions for how to fix my computer. The last time this happened, I was very proud of myself for running a diagnostic which apparently fixed the problem because it started right away afterwards.

This time, I ran the diagnostic and thought I'd fixed the problem when the computer started up again, but it started up only to the wallpaper on my desktop. It didn't start Windows and thus I could not get to any programs (or even turn the thing off without hitting the off button.

Well, Peggy asked if I'd started in "safe mode," which I had not thought of. She told me how to do it, I did, then, following her suggestion, reset things back to a December date when it had worked right. It reset things, then started back up again and voila! I was back in business.

So. Each time I crash, I learn something new. Each time I crash I remember the one vital thing that I need that I forgot to store on my external hard drive. So I've now moved THOSE things over. Enough crashes and I won't panic whenever things go sour.

I worked all day on the laptop and it was brutal. Well, I actually didn't work all day on the laptop. I was trying to write a review and the screen was so bright I could hardly see it, so I kept taking half hour breaks. But it did finally get written, so I'm good to go have my eye cut open now.

Thank you, Peggy. You are a gem.

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I love this photo. It's so "Dave."

The thing about social networking is it's so darn fun. I've all but given up on Twitter. Twitter is peopled more by tech geeks and is designed more for people on the go to arrange to meet other people, to report on meet-ups with other people, to talk about tech stuff. I follow lots of people there and lots of people follow me, but I don't feel that I really know anybody there (other than people I know in real life)

Facebook is more social. With more and more of my real-life friends joining Facebook (18 of our Pinata group are on it, for example, along with some of the spouses of the kids; 28 of the one of the groups I used to belong to on CompuServe, 7 from another group I was very active in, etc., etc.)

One of the nicest thing about Facebook is the people who find each other. I had a note from a girl --well, woman now, I guess-- who was a foreign exchange student in Davis when Dave was in his Senior year in high school. She just posted a bunch of photos from her time here, including a few of David. She managed to find me and sent me a link to her photos--that's how I found this photo.

Laurel also posts picturers of Brianna on Facebook, like this new one of Bri and Daddy enjoying the beach on Martin Luther King day.

I love Facebook.

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We are presently puppy-less. Ashley came and picked all three puppies up. Tater and Tot went off to a home in Elk Grove, south of Sacramento; Nicki went to Ashley's. We'll evaluate in a week and see when/if they are going to come back. Two people have contacted Ashley about Nicki and one of them sounds really good, so I'm hopeful again. I have to admit that being able to shut the back door to keep out cold and mosquitos, having no puddles or poop to pick up, and not having Nicki's shrill bark alerting me to her every demand has made for a lovely, relaxing evening.

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So. This is the last entry before The Day. There will be no entry for tomorrow, but Walt will put an entry into the guestbook for this entry after we get home from surgery to let you know how it all went. I'm going to spend the afternoon, after we get home, watching the DVR of the inauguration. All you guys cheer for me at the moment when power changes from Bush's hands to Obama's. I'll be with you in spirit.

Take My Heart--Please

I get my daily catharsis watching reruns of "Touched by an Angel." Blatant shlock and I freely admit that it's hokey, manipulative, and all that goes along with that soap opera stuff. Yet there's just something about it. Even the later episodes after Roma Downey shot so much botox into her lips she looked unreal.

The episodes almost always at least bring a lump to my throat about the time Monica gets the halo glow and confesses that "I am an angel" and then goes on to deliver the propaganda about God and religion to the unsuspecting subject of the day's story.

(I've always wondered how it is that so many people hire Monica for jobs without ever requiring a last name, let alone a background check. But I guess that's part of the miracle. She's like The Shadow, clouding men's minds so they don't realize that she just appeaared out of nowhere and has no resume in her back pocket.)

But there are some episodes that hit closer to home. I very nearly forgot to watch it today. I was in the middle of clearing out some of the things on my DVR and was watching an Eddie Izzard special when I realized that "Touched by an Angel" was half over, so I turned off Eddie and turned on my daily fix.

I missed the whole set up of the story--but, really, do you ever need it? Hero has crisis, rejects God, angels show up, show them the error of their ways, turn on the heavenly halo and everybody lives happily ever after, with God in their hearts.

In this episode a teenager had apparently been killed and I joined the story when a young boy, who may or may not have been her younger brother, is confessing his Deep Dark Secret, which is that he was the one who told the murderer where to find Kimmie, the victim. He has apparently been living with this guilt ever since her death (I don't know how long ago she died).

Mom freaks out and disappears into another time and place, going to the playground looking for her littie girl who has run off. Enter the Angel to remind her that her daughter is not a little girl who has disappeared, but a young woman who was murdered. Mom yells at God, asks how angel could have allowed this to happen. Angel comforts by saying he was with Kimmie when she was killed and that he was the one to take her to God and that she is now with God forever.

But...and this is the point of this entry...he then takes her to a restaurant where there is a gathering of people. He gives Dad a speech which Kimmie was to have delivered at her graduation, things about how she wanted to make a difference in the world.

Then (I can't even write this without crying), a woman stands up and talks about how she has been on dialysis for years and that she thought she was going to have to be on dialysis for the rest of her life, how she never realized there could be a kidney for her. She talks about how she now has Kimmie's kidneys and what a difference it has made in her life.

One by one, others stand up to tell their stories -- the mother who was blind, but has been able to see her newborn baby because she was given Kimmie's cornea.

Finally the young boy whose life expectancy was very short until he received Kimmie's heart and now his prognosis is for "a long life." He apologizes for having the daughter's heart. Mom tells him not to apologize and tells him it was a good heart, a strong heart.

I sobbed like a baby, thinking of David's organs and wondering if the people who received them are still alive. We were promised updates on the recipients, but we never got them. We received a note from one of them, but nothing else. Not that it matters, but it would be nice to know if David's heart is still beating somewhere.

It was a good heart, a strong heart.

The thing I regret so much about Paul's death is that because of the circumstances, it became a coroner's case and we could not donate his organs. They said they could use bone fragments, but that was about it.

I remember when my sister died. Those were the days before organ transplants became common and I believe the only organs that could be salvaged in 1972 were corneas. They asked my parents if they wanted to donate her organs and my father hit the roof. Nobody was going to "cut up his daughter."

It was something my mother and I always felt bad about it.

It has been great comfort to us, over the past 12 years, knowing that there is a part of David which still lives, that his death, however tragic it was, made a difference in the lives of so many other people.

Messages I have received from friends and strangers since David's death have opened my eyes to the kind of difference he made in the lives of people while was alive...and I know that donating his organs would have been very much in keeping with the way he lived his life.

For anyone who is ever in the tragic position of having to say goodbye to a loved one and make that decision about whether to donate organs or not, don't ever think twice. Do it. It will bring you so much comfort as you continue to deal with the grief surrounding the death of someone you loved so much.

12 years