I married someone who is, in some ways, even more frugal than my own parents. This is a low bar -- or a high bar depending on how you think of frugality. This characteristic reveals itself most when it comes to energy consumption, so we can call it a high bar, in this case.
When my family moved to the farm in 1970, that was the official beginning of the wood stove phase of our lives. Our one story house had an oil furnace but our real heat source was an Ashley stove -- a wood stove with a metal cover around it so it looked more like a box and not like a real stove. You couldn't burn yourself by touching it. After the house burned down in 1974 (due to a crack in the clay collar that held the stove pipe as it went through the wall), my parents renewed their commitment to wood heat. When we rebuilt the house, they built a giant chimney right in the middle of the kitchen, one with several flues and a big fireplace. One of the flues was for the Mexican water heater that Dad installed just to the left of the fireplace. When we needed hot water, we had to build a fire in the little fire box at the bottom, and then we had to wait a while. At one point we were four teenagers in that house. I doubt we took as many showers as most teenagers.
Okay, I take it back. Jon is not quite as extreme as my father was. Our water heater runs on electricity. But it is set pretty low, and in the summer it uses the heat that comes out of the geothermal well.
When Jon and I moved out of DC and into our first house as a married couple, we went to the most rustic end of the spectrum possible in Fairfax County. No heat source, but there was a well and there was electricity. We rented a little two story house that had been moved to the middle of an old dairy farm, and in the process of moving, somehow it had slipped off the wheels and got a little bent. So the house was charmingly unlevel and leaky, but the roof was good. There was a woodlot right out back and Jon began his new career as a wood chopper.
He has been cutting and splitting and hauling wood for 32 years, and we have had a wood stove in all three of our houses.(So, in terms of sheer longevity, he wins. My dad only lasted 14 years as a wood heat specialist, although I am sure that had nothing to do with his early demise.) I am vigilant about the safety issues, having already lived through one house fire. Jon thinks I am over-cautious, but there is no such thing.
This stove is not as high tech as the one we had on Utterback Store Road. That one had a catalytic converter and was engineered to burn hot and slow all night. This house was designed without those issues in mind (size of stove needed for that sort of behavior), so we had to downsize our stove and our expectations. We make do. In fact, one of the main reasons we chose this house site -- one that is far less aesthetically pleasing and interesting than many of the others -- is that we knew that hauling firewood would be a priority and we sure didn't want to haul it down the Greenway. We were right.
Last year I was tempted to write about Jon's escapades in the woods, hauling logs down a steep hill and across a stream, but the stories might have alarmed Lilah, and I never told them. Let's just say Jon is not as cautious as I am about driving equipment, crossing waterways, getting stuck, etc. On more than one occasion he had to call to ask me to get the tractor so I could pull the loader out of the mud. The last time I told him we were not doing that again. It was just crazy.
We have finally hit a serious cold snap here, and our wood stove is chugging along. It isn't doing all the work of heating our house (we have our geothermal unit to back us up, and our solar panels don't you know) but it is making a big dent in our energy bill.
Yesterday, for the first time that I can remember, we cooked all of our meals on the wood stove, just because we could. We had eggs for breakfast (the easiest and quickest thing to cook) and I made a big pot of lentil soup which came out just fine, so simple, and I even made tapioca because Anna was coming over for dinner. We have this widget that gives us a reading on temperature (air, water, anything) so Jon could entertain himself by figuring out where the hottest surfaces were on the stove. Then he estimated how that compared to the electric stove. He was just making stuff up.
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure we are in a teeny tiny minority, cooking on a wood stove in this super rich county. It's just one more way that we get to hone our resilience skills -- by being creative with our frugality. I am waiting for the water to boil so I can make some oatmeal, but I think it's just evaporating away, now that I notice what is really happening. Always more to learn. Jon has to explain relative humidity to me about three times a year, and I understand it until we get to another season and then I have to ask again. Somehow this is related to the fact that my oatmeal water is not boiling, I think. But maybe not.
Friday, December 29, 2017
Monday, December 18, 2017
A Quiet Departure
Less than a week ago, I wondered how long my mother-in-law would be here. And even though it was predicted and anticipated that her time would be short, it is still amazing how quickly she went. She left her affairs in order -- asking her bookkeeper and friend to come over to make sure her annual donations were sent. She sent notes to the various in-house entities that were expecting her to come and help with this or that: she told them not to expect her as she would not be around much longer. Direct and unsentimental and so reliable, as I said before. By Thursday it was clearly time for her to make her retreat downstairs to the nursing center, where Leon had lived for four years.
Lilah spent four days down there. When she arrived, she greeted everyone warmly and was received by nurses who remembered her from those long years. On Friday morning she had her last conversation, on the phone with Sarita in California, and then she dozed off and stayed asleep for the rest of her days. Family members stayed with her, talking, visiting with each other, sitting quietly. There was an empty bed in the room, and each night she had a new roommate: her daughter Dena, then her granddaughter Rebecca, and then her son Jon. She slept quietly, they slept less soundly, alert to their watchful role. I arrived late on Sunday night and went to see my sleeping mother-in-law. She was beautiful. I had not seen her so striking before, except in pictures. Somehow her face had melted into a youthful, smooth, bony version of Lilah. Utterly lovely. And so much like her daughters.
On Monday morning, today, her children felt that things had finally shifted. And, indeed, in the late morning Sue and Dena and Steve were with her and felt that it was time to gather the siblings. Within minutes all of her children were around her. And she was quiet, with no more breath. Sarita sang the Shema. And we were quiet as we waited to see if she would breathe again.
Today was not a demanding day but it seems incredible that this is the same day that Lilah died. It is the first day for as long as I can remember that I did not go out of doors until nighttime. Sue and Dena took care of decisions and details, creating a path forward for the next few days. They are following the same general path the Lilah chose when Leon died -- very private, immediate family only, with a shiva here at Brookhaven for anyone who would like to come.
It is too early for me to wrap this story up, but I want to remember the feeling of calm and peace and the lack of wrenching grief. There have been tears and there will be more. But she said it herself, she had a good life, she was lucky. And she lived in a place where people come to live until they die, so all the steps are handled with dignity and care. People say the right things, kindly. They treat all of this as a normal series of events. They don't rush. It is the most supportive environment ever for dying. The family is comforted, just being here. We are in a timeless bubble for a couple of days, and no one is pushing us anywhere.
When Sarita stepped out into the hallway to tell the cleaning ladies about her mom (it was her job partly because she is a Spanish speaker), they expressed such sorrow. They have known her for eight years and have appreciated her kindness and the notes she left for them, written in Spanish.
Tomorrow we will begin the process of making decisions about the physical stuff that is left behind, and we will meet with the rabbi and we will talk some more. All of this will help to make it more real. But Lilah set the tone, with grace and gratitude, and we will follow her lead.
Lilah spent four days down there. When she arrived, she greeted everyone warmly and was received by nurses who remembered her from those long years. On Friday morning she had her last conversation, on the phone with Sarita in California, and then she dozed off and stayed asleep for the rest of her days. Family members stayed with her, talking, visiting with each other, sitting quietly. There was an empty bed in the room, and each night she had a new roommate: her daughter Dena, then her granddaughter Rebecca, and then her son Jon. She slept quietly, they slept less soundly, alert to their watchful role. I arrived late on Sunday night and went to see my sleeping mother-in-law. She was beautiful. I had not seen her so striking before, except in pictures. Somehow her face had melted into a youthful, smooth, bony version of Lilah. Utterly lovely. And so much like her daughters.
On Monday morning, today, her children felt that things had finally shifted. And, indeed, in the late morning Sue and Dena and Steve were with her and felt that it was time to gather the siblings. Within minutes all of her children were around her. And she was quiet, with no more breath. Sarita sang the Shema. And we were quiet as we waited to see if she would breathe again.
Today was not a demanding day but it seems incredible that this is the same day that Lilah died. It is the first day for as long as I can remember that I did not go out of doors until nighttime. Sue and Dena took care of decisions and details, creating a path forward for the next few days. They are following the same general path the Lilah chose when Leon died -- very private, immediate family only, with a shiva here at Brookhaven for anyone who would like to come.
It is too early for me to wrap this story up, but I want to remember the feeling of calm and peace and the lack of wrenching grief. There have been tears and there will be more. But she said it herself, she had a good life, she was lucky. And she lived in a place where people come to live until they die, so all the steps are handled with dignity and care. People say the right things, kindly. They treat all of this as a normal series of events. They don't rush. It is the most supportive environment ever for dying. The family is comforted, just being here. We are in a timeless bubble for a couple of days, and no one is pushing us anywhere.
When Sarita stepped out into the hallway to tell the cleaning ladies about her mom (it was her job partly because she is a Spanish speaker), they expressed such sorrow. They have known her for eight years and have appreciated her kindness and the notes she left for them, written in Spanish.
Tomorrow we will begin the process of making decisions about the physical stuff that is left behind, and we will meet with the rabbi and we will talk some more. All of this will help to make it more real. But Lilah set the tone, with grace and gratitude, and we will follow her lead.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
This Moment, Right Now, is Precious
The original mission of this blog was to provide another way for my mother-in-law to be able to see something about our lives, without having to do anything but get on her computer. Now I am not sure she does get on her computer anymore, and the audience for this has not grown much past my family and a few close friends. But, as anyone near me knows, I do my best thinking when I am writing or talking, so this blog was of course for me as much as it was for Lilah. It will continue on without her but it will still be written with her in mind. I like writing for 90 year olds -- they appreciate everything and they are not super critical. In Lilah's case, she is not critical at all of me or what I write.
Just in case you have not been part of the daily news cycle in our family, we are in a whole new place with Lilah's health and future. A week ago everyone thought she would have surgery next week to remove something that was growing and getting to be problematic. Details not important. But in the last five days or so, things have changed drastically and Lilah is soon to be in the care of the hospice team that works with her residential community.
I just got off the phone with Dena -- she is staying with her mom for the week, helping to navigate the new realities and just being a very helpful and understanding presence. We are all lucky that Dena has taken the role of caregiver of emotions, if we can put it that way. In any case, it is not by chance that Dena is the one who is hanging out with Lilah this week (no one knows what next week will bring, but Jon is planning to be there). She feels lucky to be with their mom, and we are lucky that she is there. For years Sue has done all the work of being the closest sibling, living just a half mile away and always taking care of every single logistical detail and communication. No one can imagine all that Sue has done. Dena has been the one who makes sure to call every day and stay in touch from a distance. Those two have taken these roles with grace and patience, and the rest of us should remember that always.
Anyway, in the course of that conversation I learned more about what I think, in addition to hearing how things are going. Here is what I think: we are all so blessed that Lilah has the biological and emotional fortitude that she has. While she may be forgetting some things (it would be wild and unbelievable if she weren't forgetting some things), she has never not once not ever forgotten who she is or how she fits in. She has been a rock, in so many ways that we have never even noticed. She is reliably Lilah, every step of the way. This is so important for the rest of us. We have not had to adjust to a new personality as she has gotten older and less able. She has been gracious, calm, caring, strong. So strong. Throughout all the challenges of being Leon's partner as he declined and lost hold of his own essence, she has maintained her essence every moment. Certainly there have been times of distress or uncertainty. Certainly there have been times when she didn't know what to do. But she has never scared us by becoming too anxious to cope or showing flashes of anger or anything that would be a surprise. We have relied on her and she has been entirely reliable, as our mother and grandmother and mother-in-law.
This family is not particularly demonstrative or direct when it comes to feelings. I shouldn't speak with such generality -- Jon's youngest sister has been both demonstrative and direct about her feelings for many years, and we appreciate that very much. But, overall, it is a family that works things through together, appreciates every member of the group, makes time to gather together, and then talks about sports or trivia or national news. We have been getting better at expressing our feelings, now that we have had more practice, with Leon's passing and all that came with that.
This moment, this moment right now, is a gift to every single one of us. Lilah is still present and able to listen and speak. She is at home. She sleeps in her own bed, she gets out of a chair without help, she reads the newspaper at her table. But this moment is fleeting. Of course all of life is fleeting, but this time it is extremely powerfully fleeting. In less than a week she is likely to be in the nursing care center. Who can say how long she will be with us as she is today. This is our opportunity, right now, to make sure that we express to her how much she means to us.
Tears are flowing down my face as I write this. Of course I am grateful that she has had a good life, a life of love, including a perfectly lived marriage of over 60 years, and work and family and even a fine retirement in a comfortable home. And it is hard to express how grateful I am that she will not suffer as she gets closer to death. Because of all the choices she has made up until now, and the choices her children have made on her behalf, she will have the chance to have a good death. This is such a gift. It is hard to imagine, right now, the world without her. It is always hard to imagine that. But we know, from long experience, that we will think of her always and she will be a part of who we are forever. We have depended on her and we will continue to depend on her -- it will just be up to us to keep her memory alive and relevant. As we know, memory can be tricky. This is my own promise to Lilah: I will make sure that we remember you accurately and continue to learn from what you have taught us.
This is a hard moment, as precious as it is.
Just in case you have not been part of the daily news cycle in our family, we are in a whole new place with Lilah's health and future. A week ago everyone thought she would have surgery next week to remove something that was growing and getting to be problematic. Details not important. But in the last five days or so, things have changed drastically and Lilah is soon to be in the care of the hospice team that works with her residential community.
I just got off the phone with Dena -- she is staying with her mom for the week, helping to navigate the new realities and just being a very helpful and understanding presence. We are all lucky that Dena has taken the role of caregiver of emotions, if we can put it that way. In any case, it is not by chance that Dena is the one who is hanging out with Lilah this week (no one knows what next week will bring, but Jon is planning to be there). She feels lucky to be with their mom, and we are lucky that she is there. For years Sue has done all the work of being the closest sibling, living just a half mile away and always taking care of every single logistical detail and communication. No one can imagine all that Sue has done. Dena has been the one who makes sure to call every day and stay in touch from a distance. Those two have taken these roles with grace and patience, and the rest of us should remember that always.
Anyway, in the course of that conversation I learned more about what I think, in addition to hearing how things are going. Here is what I think: we are all so blessed that Lilah has the biological and emotional fortitude that she has. While she may be forgetting some things (it would be wild and unbelievable if she weren't forgetting some things), she has never not once not ever forgotten who she is or how she fits in. She has been a rock, in so many ways that we have never even noticed. She is reliably Lilah, every step of the way. This is so important for the rest of us. We have not had to adjust to a new personality as she has gotten older and less able. She has been gracious, calm, caring, strong. So strong. Throughout all the challenges of being Leon's partner as he declined and lost hold of his own essence, she has maintained her essence every moment. Certainly there have been times of distress or uncertainty. Certainly there have been times when she didn't know what to do. But she has never scared us by becoming too anxious to cope or showing flashes of anger or anything that would be a surprise. We have relied on her and she has been entirely reliable, as our mother and grandmother and mother-in-law.
This family is not particularly demonstrative or direct when it comes to feelings. I shouldn't speak with such generality -- Jon's youngest sister has been both demonstrative and direct about her feelings for many years, and we appreciate that very much. But, overall, it is a family that works things through together, appreciates every member of the group, makes time to gather together, and then talks about sports or trivia or national news. We have been getting better at expressing our feelings, now that we have had more practice, with Leon's passing and all that came with that.
This moment, this moment right now, is a gift to every single one of us. Lilah is still present and able to listen and speak. She is at home. She sleeps in her own bed, she gets out of a chair without help, she reads the newspaper at her table. But this moment is fleeting. Of course all of life is fleeting, but this time it is extremely powerfully fleeting. In less than a week she is likely to be in the nursing care center. Who can say how long she will be with us as she is today. This is our opportunity, right now, to make sure that we express to her how much she means to us.
Tears are flowing down my face as I write this. Of course I am grateful that she has had a good life, a life of love, including a perfectly lived marriage of over 60 years, and work and family and even a fine retirement in a comfortable home. And it is hard to express how grateful I am that she will not suffer as she gets closer to death. Because of all the choices she has made up until now, and the choices her children have made on her behalf, she will have the chance to have a good death. This is such a gift. It is hard to imagine, right now, the world without her. It is always hard to imagine that. But we know, from long experience, that we will think of her always and she will be a part of who we are forever. We have depended on her and we will continue to depend on her -- it will just be up to us to keep her memory alive and relevant. As we know, memory can be tricky. This is my own promise to Lilah: I will make sure that we remember you accurately and continue to learn from what you have taught us.
This is a hard moment, as precious as it is.
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