i'm doing okay

you know, they don;treally explain things. like the doctor calmly said, "and you[ll have to keep your head down for a while." but he didn';t say for weeks and doing this head down thing is really difficult. this wohn[t be a long blog cuase i can;t type in head donw position very well. sitting reading isn''t bad but the neck hates it. trying to sleep on your stomach or side but still with your eye facing down is near ijmpossible. but i listened to the laker game (GO LAKERS) and used my imagination, but it took some doing. we sighted folks are sure lucky when our sight is working. tonight i'm looking forward to HEARING THE CELtics (GO CELTICS).

also must cancel clients for weeks. that's not cool.

oh and riding in a car back and forth to doctors with head down resultsin nausea and vomting. that's been the low point so far.

at least i can use the phone. tho i get tired. and i probably could practice putting and really keep my head down quite well.

so, usually cheerful pretty much, i know this wiill get OLD real soon.

but, hey, i had nothing to blog about when i had no life tragedies, so i guess this little run in with eyeball aging is designd to keep me a blogger. Clare our great UCLA coordinator has been telling me that i can make this little ibook of mine talk. think i'll try to figure it out.

so with greetings and salutations and love all around ---

i remain (partially sighted and mending),

cynthia, cyn, cindy, mum, aunt cyn, great aunt cyn

Rest . . . there are better ways to get one.

My sweet niece Katie wrote, "I hope you get a rest real real soon." Well, I guess the Gods in Favor of Well-Rested Aunts were listening. The latest vision problems? Signs of detached retina. I leave in 7 minutes for the hospital for eye surgery. As Mir would say, "Get ex-ci-ted!!!" (So the way to forget about going blind? Just get the damned surgery over with.)

Now the resting part. I have to take two weeks off work (and off pay for my non UCLA practice) and keep my head down. All the time. And there is a long list of what I can't do. Starting with washing my hair for a week and not lifting anything over 30 pounds for 6 months. That'll be pleasant.

So, once again, as with my hysterectomy and losing my son, I find less than perfect ways to take vacation. I thought Scotland was a much better plan.

So -- now it's 4 minutes from takeoff. I better stop.

I'll be blogging soon, I hope.

Last Memorial Day

The last time I saw Kyle--well really saw him--talking and laughing and full of life, was right after Memorial Day last year. He had spent some time making this monster of a message on the Venice graffiti wall. It was a response to the fact that following the weekend, the city of Venice would put into effect a new law: writers could no longer paint on the wall without a permit. He thought that was ridiculous and wrote the above message: FUCKAPERMIT. He particularly liked the fact that the wall was across from the police station. I liked the fact that he was getting the 3D down really well.

That kid at the right end? He's already started to paint over Ky's work. That's how it was at the graffiti wall. Soon as you were done, the next writer is literally all over it. To get the picture, Ky had to ask folk to wait and then run way back to take the shot. He came home and dumped his pictures into my computer and we had a great talk that night. I told him I thought that if he were going to be a graffiti artist that words and messages, his politics, would be his talent. He then spent ages showing me pictures of graffiti he had taken all over San Francisco. He'd explained about his name DFEAT and the FYF crew theme that, sadly, I'd get to know so much more about that (FarewellYoungFriend). The time Ky spent with me, even at the time, felt like a gift, like something we were both savoring.

As promised: How to stop worrying about going blind

I tore my retina in February, the night before Super Tuesday, when I was volunteering doing data entry at the Barack Obama camptaign office in Venice. It was really scary; it was as if my eye had filled with black swirling oil. I took off my contact lense, thinking I'd had a major run-in with my mascara, expecting to clean it off and fix the situation. The lense was clean, but my vision still was marred by black gunk. I asked someone to look at my eye, to see what it looked like from the outside. Nothing there. I looked in a mirror: nothing. My vision in my right eye was cloudy and there were the swirling oil floaters. Driving home, I was disoriented, and seeing weird verticle flashes of light. I got scared.

I got more scared when I got home and looked on the internet and found out that probably I had either torn or detached my retina. Next morning I got a referral for a retina specialist and, after waiting three hours, was finally seen and had lazer surgery to repair the tear. It hurt a bit and I got a little faint. But the tear was mended and within a few weeks my vision was normal.

Well, then I had a reoccurance of vision problems, a couple of times. Three weeks ago suddenly I have pea soup thick vision with more floaters. Did I mention how scary this all is? But, I had an epiphany.

How do you stop worrying about going blind?

Get up the next day to find you've lost all your keys to your four offices.

How to stop worrying about losing your keys?

Reread the email and realize you've been asked--not just to
come to the History Department Honors Banquet to present
your son's scholarship--but also to give a speech.

How to stop stage fright about giving a speech--without sobbing?

Get your car towed while celebrating your niece's graduation.

How to stop fretting about your car being towed?

Go bale it out in time to get on a plane to Oakland the next
morning, only to find you've left your cell phone
on the front seat of your car at the remote airport parking lot.

How to stop worrying about traveling in San Francisco without
a cell phone?

Get stuck with everyone and his mother crossing the Bay Bridge,
taking 2.5 hours to get from Oakland to my hotel, leaving barely enough
time to get to the award banquet (to do the speech which you've now
memorized sitting in traffic).

How not to worry about nearly arriving late?

Lose your driver's license somewhere between the Oakland Airport
rental car place and your hotel.

How to stop worrying about the driver's license?
Try to get on a return airplane trip without one.


And finally--how not to think about the fact that last Memorial Day,
was the last time you saw your son breathing on his own?

Have your eye symptoms get much worse--like 1/2 the vision
completely blacked out in your eye and have a three day weekend
when you can't get treatment.

Yeah. And I spent yesterday afternoon watching (with one good eye) the Lakers getting trounced by San Antonio and now I'm sitting here watching the Celtics/Pistons game and Boston can't buy a basket.

Gimme a break, will ya?

Kyle Campbell Whitham McLeod Scholarship Recipient

On May 17th, I flew up north and attended the San Francisco State University History Department's Honors Banquet and presented the first Kyle McLeod Scholarship to Romina Green, the young woman pictured above. Beside her is Dr. Abdiel Onate, Director of Latin American Studies Minor.

Kyle's scholarship was given to Ms. Green because she met the criteria requested by our family and within the requirements of the university: a junior or senior majoring in Latin American History, in good standing, who is sensitive to issues of people of color, and who has financial need. Romina is the granddaughter of Chilean refugees from the Pinochet coup d'etat and is a delightful young woman who is traveling this summer for the first time to study in Chile.

The banquet took place at the Seven Hills Conference Center which was next to Ky's first year dorm (Mary Ward, I think) and next to the child care center. Ky would tell me about weekday mornings waking to the sounds of children playing below his window. I was welcomed warmly by the History Department and I was able to meet several of Kyle's teacher and a classmate who remembered Kyle fondly. Gearey, Miranda, and I were invited to return annually to present the scholarship award.

I think we made a good decision about how to honor Kyle. I think he would be pleased.

Mother's Day

Dear nieces Devon and Elizabeth with Cyn and Sal

Early in the week a few people said to me, "I know this is a rough week for you." The first time, it didn't register. The second time, I asked myself what they were talking about. Of course, Mother's Day. I gave myself an emotional check-in and realized that I wasn't having a hard time. It was a pleasant sensation, not to be in pain even when I had a perfectly good excuse.

They say that rituals help. Maybe that's why. I've been up to my ears in ritual. There were two donor memorials; the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation's ceremony on the 13th of April up in Cupertino and the Organ Donor Remembrance on the 26th in Hayward. I saw hundreds of donor family members who--like me--had lost their son or daughter or wife or husband and who had--like Gearey and I--made the decision to give his/her organs and more to save or help the living. I met recipients of skin who had undergone painful disfiguring burns, a former paraplegic who was cured by the transplant of a neck bone, a young nurse who'd lost the use of her foot, but now--thanks to donations of bone--was back to nursing on two strong feet. I met recipients of kidneys and livers, who explained how new it was to get a liver and how hard it is to find a kidney match (which was why Ky's kidneys are in Oregon and Maryland). And then, I watched as a line of recipients--young, old, white, black, Asian, Latino--stretched long across the stage and one by one, humbly and lovingly, spoke to us, the families of the 900 northern California donors in 2007, and thanked us for our loved lost ones' gifts.

On Ky's 23rd birthday, I visited the train station (see below). Later in the month in San Francisco, I finally met Kyle's wonderful boss Paul, who was every bit as kind and caring as Kyle had described. I will never know how much Paul influenced him in that year; but I bet it was a great deal. Then, last weekend I visited Miranda to celebrate her graduation (more on that later). And in between, when in town, I visited Kyle's grave at Forest Lawn, where I burnt incense, blew bubbles (the little bubble bottle still residing in Aunt Di's planter), left a note, cleaned off the marker, watered the plants, arranged flowers, and took in the view and the sounds and the smells.

So, by the time Mother's Day came around I had been taken 3 airplane round trips, met kind strangers, hugged a whole lot of people, cried buckets, and engaged in ritual practice many many times.

The main feeling I had before and on Mother's Day, was of celebration. As a mother for 26 plus years, I have given birth to and raised to adulthood two miraculous children. They are/were handsome and brilliant and good and kind and generous and witty and fun-loving-- like each of you and each of your children. I could not, would not, have traded in either of them for all the green/black/white tea in China.

And, the most prominent thought this week, was remembering that I was so proud of Kyle last year when a padded envelope arrived two days before Mother's Day, addressed incorrectly but still arriving early. Inside was a tiny bag and inside the bag wrapped in turquoise tissue paper were a pair of earrings. Lovely delicate dangly earrings with green (my favorite colors) stones. Perfect earrings for me (see photo above). At the time I kept the little paper bag and the tissue paper. And after Ky died I was so glad I did.

When your children remember to call you, hundreds of miles away, on your birthday or Mother's Day or New Year's Day, it is such a pleasure. You share a few minutes, catch up, wish each other well and happy day. But when they go that extra length, to send a card or a gift like flowers or a plant or earrings, your heart is filled with such warmth and pride--that they are growing up and taking time from their busy lives to do something for another (for you). These are the moments you treasure. Miranda had been doing this for several years. Last year was the first time for Kyle. And I delighted in this sure sign of adulthood, of manhood.

Two days before Mother's Day, a beautiful orchid plant arrived from Miranda. A deep purple phalaenopsis, with several flowers and many more buds. Bless her heart, my sweet daughter. The orchid is on my desk next to my computer with just enough sunlight. It can last for years; it will, if it is very very lucky, and Sallie helps me.

On Mother's Day, our beautiful nieces, Devon and Elizabeth, took sister Sal and me to brunch. Since my daughter was in NYC and Sallie's daughter Rhea was driving across country--had hit the rockies on Sunday, we were awfully lucky to have our brothers' girls to celebrate with. So there we all are. At Baja Cantina. Pestering the waitress to take a pic on the cell phone. And, can't you tell? A lovely time was had by all.

So. Yeah. I'm doing okay. I haven't sat down with Ky's picture and stared into his eyes and once again realized he is not coming down from SF ever again; nor have I truly allowed myself to get in touch with the pain that is there, not too far, below the surface. I'm staying busy and crazed (see upcoming Saga of How Losing All Ones Office Keys Can Make Semi Blindness a Minor Concern) and another ritual comes up this weekend. More to Come, More to Come, More to Come . . . .