Discovery

When my daughter and I discuss her childhood, we've come to the conclusion that I raised a different child and she had a different mother based on our memories of the same event. However, every now and then we discover something new in those memories. 

We were on the bus discussing the rare form of epilepsy that plagued her from age two to six when we had a diagnosis. Once my daughter started to vomit, she could not stop, short of hospitalization and IVs bringing medicine and liquids to her racked little body. Some of the stays were short, over night: sometimes they lasted a week or more.

The first time after checking her in and I made my way to the pediatrics ward, where they'd taken her I found her hands tied so she wouldn't pull out the IVs. "Yoke," she said, her voice shaking with anger. "Yoke what they did to me." She promised to leave the IVs in if we untied her. Despite the nurses' doubt, we untied her. She kept her promise.

Hospitalizations became so frequent that once a pediatric nurse called me to see how she was because a few weeks went by without an attack.

Only when a cocky young doctor, who saw her in emergency the night of the same day that she'd been released after an attack, refused to do what I told him would work and did what I knew wouldn't and wouldn't check her records, did we take her to Mass General. Many, many tests later we had the diagnosis and a prescription for Dilantin. She never had another attack.

 

She took her medicine happily, reminding me if I was delayed in giving it to her. Only recently has she confessed that it wasn't just because she knew it would prevent attacks, although that was part of it. "It tasted like candy," she said. When she was little, I limited her candy to two pieces a day. She was afraid that if I knew how good the medicine was, I'd substitute it for the candy. So she thought she was getting four sweets a day, two of which kept her out of the hospital.

On its last tires

I don't own a car. I haven't since 1993. There was a period of several months once, I wasn't even in a car thanks to the great public transportation system in Geneva.

However, my housemate, who lives about 20 minutes outside the city, does.

In its 13th year, the car is on its last tires. The driver's window may decide not to go up. The clutch considers engaging optional. There are knicks and the fender is hanging a bit like a sagging woman's breasts.

The mechanic has ruled it terminal.

Since the car is due for its costly inspection, now is the time for her to replace it.

I've lived almost 10 years with the car and although cars hold little interest to me, this one is an old friend. I have driven it from time to time, although before my eye surgery I didn't because my sight was limited. When I did drive it, it was a lovely handling car, that didn't seem to mind my infrequent times of being behind the wheel.

So many memories in the car and to name a few and smile before the car disappears forever:

• The sudden sushi attacks and the ride  into town rather than wait for the bus
• The long trip to Northern Germany to research my book
• The mountain curves on the way to a chalet
• The trips to the airport to collect this or that person
• The radio playing nostalgic songs or DVDs of Il Divo, Streisand and Elton John
• Picking up No. 2 son after music lessons and getting lost in the wilds of Corsier
• The times after a train ride from Argelès when it was waiting for me behind Starbucks.

Photos

The box full of photos from my stepmom's house arrived and it was heavy. When I opened it I found hundreds. My nephew who had cleared out her house had not known what to save or not.

Many were to be discarded. They were friends of my parents that I would see once or twice a year when I visited Florida and hold no sentimental value.

About 50% were to be kept. I must label the ones with aunts and uncles, long gone. One was of an uncle, who had been dead twice the number of years he lived next to one of my cousin as a tiny girl. She is now older than I am.

There was the wedding picture of my dad and stepmom and many of my late sister from the time she was a little girl through many visits when we were all adults gathered for family holidays.

And there were some I had sent them of my daughter in various stages of development as well as those taken when we were all together. One photo had Llara and my dad on their stomachs watching TV. Memory says they were watching the Pats play football.

Another I'd sent of a Christmas with Susan, Betty, Kirk, Jim, Llara, Hiram, Eva, Bill, Sam and two Japanese chins. Now only Susan, Betty, Kirk and Llara are still living--and me of course. The capture of happy times, happy lives which are fleeting in the course of the relentless flowing of time.

I understand why when people lose their home to a hurricane or tornado, what they mourn most is the loss of photos. They tell our lives as much as our stories do.

They are also a reminder of how precious moments are with those we love. I must remember not to squander them.