Thank you all so much for your kind words; it’s good to hear from everyone. Nine months after my father died, I still haven’t really gotten used to it, and still sometimes think of him in the present tense. Just in the two previous years, my uncle and aunt (my father’s only brother and his wife) also passed away, and it’s a very strange feeling knowing that there’s nobody in my family anymore (my late mother was an only child) from my parents’ generation. Just me and my three first cousins, and my sister (who lives in Europe, and whom I haven’t seen for 20 years).
The things that went wrong in the hospital with my father, after he was admitted with what was supposed to be a relatively mild case of pneumonia (if there is such a thing when you’re 94) the night he was supposed to receive his award – my son and I went to the event and accepted it for him, and at least he got to see it the next day and read the program – were just unbelievable. The worst was the fact that after a week in the hospital, when he had started to feel better, he fell on the floor in the middle of the night trying to get out of bed to go to the bathroom (the nurse’s aide my stepmother had arranged through the hospital to be there at night had fallen asleep, and the sides of the bed weren’t up), they didn’t examine or X-ray him thoroughly, and missed the fact that he had broken a rib, and that the broken rib had punctured a lung – and then sent him home a couple of days later even though he still had a fever, and had started to be mentally disoriented, which he had never been before (“oh, old people get like that in hospitals; he just needs to go home”), so that by the time he was readmitted three horrible days after that, suffering severe pain and not even recognizing that he was home in his apartment the entire time, and they figured out what had happened, the still-remaining pneumonia had spread from the punctured lung throughout his chest cavity, and despite massive doses of antibiotics, it was too late.
I really wanted to do something afterwards, and at least write to the hospital (one of the major hospitals in Manhattan) to explain what happened, so maybe it won’t happen again to someone else – as a friend of mine who’s a doctor and writes one of the medical columns for the New York Times strongly advised me to do – but it’s my stepmother’s decision, and she hasn’t wanted to pursue it, or wanted me to pursue it.
I’m sure I’ll find some sort of job eventually, although for the last month or so I’ve been much more focused on trying to find a new apartment – it seemed a lot more crucial, somehow, especially once I realized how depressed I was feeling, and that I was starting to have thoughts about homeless shelters! So I decided I’d better concentrate on figuring out how to get an apartment without having a job, and hopefully within the next few days that, at least, will be settled It’s a good thing I have enough money to pay a year’s rent in advance without bankrupting myself, or I don’t know what I’d do…
Very Happy, you’re absolutely right about not feeling compelled to find another job that pays anything close to what I was making before – I applied for, and came frustratingly close to getting (they ultimately hired some guy who was about 30), one public-interest type job that would have involved working for LGBT rights, that paid less than half of my former salary. (Not that I was making very much compared to most New York lawyers I know with 30+ years experience, given that I was never a partner anyplace. My career has never been particularly successful, but I could never bring myself to care very much about that; other things have always been far more important to me.) My father, also a lawyer, had been at the same law firm for 63 years when he died, and was still going to work every day until a couple of years ago. Working for another 35 years until I’m the age my father reached is definitely not my ambition! I have enough outside interests to keep me busy and happy for at least that long if I were ever able to retire. So right now, all I’m looking for is something that will at least allow me to break even for a number of years, while not being as completely miserable as I was at my last job for many years… (The one major advantage of being unemployed for the last eight months is that not one single person has yelled at me!)
Congratulations to all of you on your own news, including marriages and children’s marriages and everything else. I’m very sorry for your loss of your dad, LasMa.
Bunsen Burner, I empathize with you, because I think my prospects of becoming a grandma in the next decade, if ever, are extremely remote. My son will be 25 in April, and he just began graduate school, and being a parent (or even getting married, despite the fact that he could now do so legally in more than half of the country!) are not anywhere near the top of his current list of priorities. But one good friend of mine in academia, who had delayed trying to have a baby until she got tenure a year ago, is now expecting a baby boy in June (kinehora), and has asked me to be an honorary auntie. Which is very exciting! So I’ll manage to console myself with that for the time being. (One of my first cousins posts photos of her three grandchildren on Facebook almost every day, and although I’m very happy for her, I admit that it makes me envious, especially since she lives far away and I never get to see any of them. Proving what a petty, vicious person I am! So this will be a lot more direct.)
Yes, I did notice that the site looks different, although I’m not sure exactly what changed. I hadn’t seen the like button before now, but I “liked” all of your responses! I don’t believe I’ve seen a photo of myself in several years that I thought was acceptable for public consumption, so instead I will try to post as my avatar a picture of my cat Ziggy, who is now almost 9 (time flies) and doing fine. I feel sorry for him when I look at him, because I know he will not enjoy, at all, the disruption of moving again after five years. It’s not like I can warn him to prepare himself!
Thanks again. I doubt that I will be posting as much as I once did, but it’s nice to be here again.
