Chapter 4: Footprints on my bladder

The Culprit

I've Got Footprints On My Bladder

by Patricia Graham

Oh, I've got footprints on my bladder.

I've got babies on my brain.

All day long I'm a-chatter,

'Bout clowns or dollies I'm gonna frame.

My stomach is expanding

And is restless and demanding.

Do ya think I kin ever fit

Into a dress the size I'm gonna git?

I wonder what "Ish" would say

If he saw me standing this-away

Surveying my expansion

-a-itching and a-scratching?

How long d'I hafta wait

-afore I git to hatching?

Oh, I've got footprints on my bladder.

I've got babies on my brain.

The sex, it doesn't matter,

But I can't think of a name!

At the time Pat wrote this she was Assistant Editor of the Littleton Independent.  December 1969

Fair's Fair

It's not been all rosy, folks.  Some people write and are encouraging--it means the world to me, keep it up!  Others who I thought would appreciate the blog haven't really tuned in to the medium.  And some I thought might take the blog wrong way have and are hurt.  What can I say, dynamics are a bitch.  I took a little break, loaded up some Strawberry Fridays to carry me into the spring, then got back to the work at hand. 

And there it was.

My mother writes in her draft prompting a friend to write her chapter, and I quote my mom here: "A story that probably won't make it into the book unless my gutsy daughter Sarah, a lot like you in fact, is even gutsier than I imagine."

Oh, it's there people.  In my most playful font I imagine you say, "The bitch didn't!"  Oh yes, she did.  What follows?  The story of me and my first menses.  How does this fit in with her book?  It maybe doesn't.  But it entirely fits in with this blog.  I've aired her honest laundry, and fair's fair.

I meet your challenge Janet Trever, and will raise you!  Knowing, trusting that the two of us can go there together.

So here is her version, uncensored and unabridged.  Not the way I'd tell it, but again, fair's fair.

When she left for her summer visitation with her Dad's family just before her 12th birthday, she asked me what would happen if her period began during the 3 months; many of her friends' menses had already begun.  At the airport we planned a code system so that no nosey folks at the other end would know what she was telling me.  The code we came up with: "Molly Brown's Living room."

The story could end there, but doesn't.  On her birthday, June 21st, we talked on the phone a while, I went to be early for exams the next day.  She called late at night, woke me out of a sound sleep, and all I could hear was this person babbling about some living room.  I finally woke up enough to understand.  There were no supplies in the house* for her, she needed me to talk to her Dad and take her out to a store to stock up.  I talked to him (his wife, Sarah's step-mother, was out of town at the time) and they got through the experience as best the could.  That phrase is permanently embedded in our brains to this day.

*My one correction.  WE WERE CAMPING!!!  I WAS IN THE WOODS WITH BOYS AND MEN AND MORE BOYS!!!  I made my dad drive to a phone in the middle of nowhere (in North Dakota already, keep in mind) in the middle of the night to pass the code phrase on to my mom so she could explain to my confused father.  I couldn't tell him what was happening, just that I needed a phone. 

In the end you would not believe my luck.  Hours from home, my dad drove to the nearest convenient store.  Ready for the miracle?  My beloved sister just HAPPENED to be at the same store in the middle of the woods and saved me from a death by humiliation in sparing my dad from the purchase and explanation of the bags contents.  Thanks Charlotte, I still owe you!

The walls people, check out the walls.  Also, check definition of TMI.

Wild Women: Marie Colvin

Princesses and pirates aside, researching women in patches brought me to Marie Colvin.  Ms. Colvin, and American born reporter for The Sunday Times, is a real, live action hero- reporting from the front lines in conflicts worldwide.  Her courage, regardless of her ocular status, inspires me.  To note she has one eye feels superficial, its certainly not a central theme of her story. 

Take a look at the titles of her articles--perhaps you've read a few?

Check out this video featuring Ms. Colvin on the dangers of correspondents, the loss of her eye, and her efforts to bring to light an unreported humanitarian disaster.  She poses the rhetorical question: is it worth the cost?  "I felt that risk was worth it."

Sunday Mirror article on eembedded journalists (top photo credit)
http://riveronline.co.uk/09/category/meta-tags/sunday-mirror

Strawberry Story: St. Francis Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace

Where there is hatred, let me sow love

Where there is injury, pardon

Where there is doubt, faith

Where there is despair, hope

Where there is darkness, light

Where there is sadness, joy

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love,

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

St. Francis remains a family affair:



St. Francis statue at Mission San Luis, Tallahassee
(note: have you EVER seen a St. Francis with a skull before?)

Ellie and St. Francis, Nombre de Dios, St. Augustine

Ellie at final resting place of Janet, Loie, and Arthur Trever. 
First United Methodist Church, St. Francis Garden, Arlington Heights

Mom's St. Francis Garden, Arlington Heights.

St. Francis Garden, Winter 2007.

Trever pays his respects to his namesakes.

Two more Trevers across the way.

PS Today is Arthur Nelson Trever's birthday, born January 21, 1915.

The Eye Patch Quilt: Cousin!

Lilypad quilt by Marcia Karlin.

Last month I had the opportunity to visit Laura Bernstein, and on top of a fabulous, spiritual visit, I got to see the quilt that started it all.  Marcia Karlin made this quilt of lily pads that Laura purchased from the Chicago Botanical Gardens show and now hangs on her wall.  When we were looking for a textile artist to take on our assignment, it was at Laura's recommendation that we looked to Marcia.

Quilt details:

Lilypad detail.

Lilypad detail.

Close-up of southeast corner detail.

View of overall quilt, estimated 4 by 6 feet.

Ashes FTW

Quote I grabbed from the fridge to read for mom's eulogy.

A few years ago a neighbor of ours died in a motorcycle accident, and I was impressed by his daughters and their ability to string together coherent thoughts at the funeral. 

Not me.  I was so stunned and in utter disbelief, I couldn't piece much together.  I wanted to talk, to honor her, but it just didn't come to me what to say.  I wanted to read from the Book of Ruth, the "wherever you go, I will go" passage.  But as the service drew close, it didn't seem appropriate to say I'd go where she'd go.  Who knows if I'd be buried beside her?  And who'd want to hear that at a funeral by a 25 year old woman?

On the way out the door I grabbed a quote mom had laminated on our fridge.  It had been in one house or another for years and years.  I took it for granted day after day, but on that January day in 1999, it seemed to me the only appropriate thing to say.

I would rather be ashes than dust.  I would rather my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled in dry-rot.  I would rather be a superb METEOR, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.  Man's chief purpose is to LIVE, not to exist.  I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.  I shall use my time.

~Jack London

Sweet Surrender

Mom in Switzerland 1998.

That crazy woman not only planned three memorial services for herself, but requested that each one start with the song "Sweet Surrender."  I'll be sharing more about mom's passing much later in the blog, but on the 12th anniversary I just can't help myself.

Back to Basics: Camp Gongi

Aunt Gongi: roommate, bridesmaid, duck advocate...

One of the best parts of doing this blog is having mom's past be dynamic- a living, breathing part of my day where humans inter-relate and discuss.  In that spirit, I wanted to share a recent email I received from mom's iconic roommate Pat Graham, aka Gongi.  I always knew her as Aunt Gongi.  She called Loie "Nutsy Mommy," but I'll save that story for another time.


On the eve of mom's yahrzeit Gongi's email serves as a wonderful reminder to the heart of mom's book.  She didn't do it to produce a biography, or to memorialize herself in bright lights.  In a word, advocacy was the theme of her work. 


Deep felt thanks to Gongi for allowing me to post her email, and thanks also for the advocacy reminder/reprise as I move forward with this project.


From Gongi:


I have wondered what had happened to Jan's dream of a book... I also contributed to her call for material for it when she was putting together a rough draft--- but she didn't like what I sent.  She said I had inspired her to leave behind the prosthetic for the patches and that was the story she wanted me to write, but what I sent her was more like a tale of "The Odd Couple"...!!!

But during her last years and months, she emailed me a lot, mostly tracking the frustration with the health care system and other mostly earthly concerns about insurance and money.  After she died, I printed out all of those emails and have them in a three ring binder.  They are stored in a drawer along with pictures and some other items.   Would you like to have the binder of emails to add to your blog?

I have felt guilty that I have not made a story of it-- I've waited for a "call" to take it all out and do that-- but perhaps it would be better in your hands to give you some more insights into the story that is flowing out of you now.  Yes, she was sweet and romantic and spiritual and reached hearts of a wide variety of people.  But she wasn't all poetry and strawberry cream.  She was tough, too--- she had to be tough to survive, to get the system so stacked against her to work for her.  She used her charms and her wits to get what she needed to get through the worst times and to get to the next day...

I have faced a lot of my own health challenges in recent years, forcing my retirement as an economics professor in December 2009, and I have survived using a lot of your Mom's strategies including No. 1: get your health caretakers on your side.  Make sure they know you as a person, a special individual, not just another "patient."  So I have learned to know the janitor's name, the name of the aide that wheels you to X-ray, and especially the names of the CNAs and nurses.  Yes, the doctor is important, too, but those nurses and CNAs are the people who hold your life in their hands.

Your Mom knew she couldn't battle all the demons alone.  So she knew how to "use people" in a good way--- she recognized special gifts in others and knew how to appeal to them so she could learn and absorb new ideas and energy that kept her going.  She was a kind of "wheeler-dealer" in the spiritual world--- appearing to be just a sweet little kid from suburban Illinois who just wanted to be a Christian Education director in the Methodist church. She looked like a real softy, a real pushover, but I'm telling you she had to have real rock hard guts and courage to reach the people and to get to the places she did. 


I'll bet she and Elizabeth Edwards are having a bit of a chat right now!

Strawberry Story: All I Ask of You (no, not that one, the other one)

For the Music as Therapy post I wanted to put in music from Weston Priory, but now realize there is a copyright reason none are posted on YouTube.  There is a video that features a group playing on of the songs, which is worth a listen just to hear.  For this Strawberry Friday I thought I'd post the lyrics.  The song was played my my mom's memorial services and is a wonderful message from beyond. 

Today is the eve of the 12th anniversary of her passing.

The Eye Patch Quilt: Lasting Impressions

Eye Patch Quilt (note: text on fabric circled in yellow).

The quilt contains more than patches and lenses.  Marcia used photo-sensitive inks to transfer words written on transparencies to the fabric.  Some of a saying came from background material we gave her: mom's book, favorite passages, newspaper articles.  Just when I think I've found them all, sometimes I spot another one, like an ethereal I Spy.

Poem by Laura Bernstein, also see Celebrate Weirdness post.

Somewhere between a diamond and a coal smudge.

Pain is the crackling of the shell that encloses our understanding.

I am still here.

I glow in the dark, a reminder of the days of radiation.

There's one more, "Best I ever tasted."  Do you see it?

Strawberry Story: Thérèse de Lisieux



Handout brought by Gongi for mom's memorial with this poem.



May today there be peace within

May you trust your highest power

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith

May you use those gifts that you have received

And pass on the love that has been given to you

May you be content knowing you are a child of God

Let this presence settle into your bones

And allow your soul the freedom

To sing, to dance, and to bask in the sun

It is there for you~ and every one of you.

~ Thérèse de Lisieux

Chapter 3: Janet Gone Wild

Janet Trever and Loie's future son-in-law on the right.

I've seen this picture before, but never quite this way.  After reading through Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, I myself feel like flying now that we've reached Chapter 3.  Mom transfers to DU and takes a chance on her iconic eye patch.  She pledges a sorority and finds herself soon on a blind date with the president of a fraternity.  As mom says, "I got three years in the swan pool."

Janet lived a fairytale.  I have stacks of photo albums with picture after picture of formals, theme parties, hikes and drives in the mountains. 

Tarzan party patch on the Eye Patch Quilt.