Christmas 2021

We have just completed a torrent of activity, and it is remarkable that two months have passed since we arrived back in Yarmouth. I will try to chronicle the last 60 or so days without rattling off a list of completed tasks. And I hope that the resumption of life at home, so cruelly interrupted by a carefree trip on the road in Wanda, will reestablish some of the rhythms of life that provide the comfortable “seasonality” that we enjoyed prior to July.

Deb and the New Canaan Chickees on the morning following Abbey and Ted's wedding at Spaulding Hospital in Cambridge, MA where the hospital staff graciously allowed us to host an "after-party".

Deb is “under the roof”, something we took for granted until escaping from hospitals became our first priority. While we are so grateful for the doctors, surgeons, residents, nurses, and therapists that surrounded Deb and aided in her recovery, we are also happy to leave them to care for others. As I look back over the three months we spent in Cleveland and in Boston, I have a warm recollection of the medical professionals that touched us with their kindness and good humor. These relationships, seemingly brief, come into contact at a vulnerable level; and you do not emerge from such contact unchanged. It was a privilege being in their care, and we hope they felt our appreciation for the unfortunate reality that brought us into each other's lives.

Life at home started as a bit of a terrifying ride. Knowing that Deb was out of the hospital, and committed to never returning, we felt the gravity of our independence most acutely during the first few weeks. Learning to navigate the machines and procedures was our first hill to climb, followed by putting our own finesse and creativity into Deb’s care plan as we experimented with the boundaries that were managed by attending physicians and nurses for 3 months.

Our townhouse has been “remodeled”. Our dining area has been repurposed as a bedroom, surrounded by “shabby chic” folding shutters that were so named by my sister, Cyndy, and installed by my brother-in-law, Al, toward the end of our Boston residency. This lets us cordon off part of the room for privacy while keeping Deb fully in the action. A stairlift that provided Deb independence when moving between floors has been donated to Compassionate Care ALS so that another family can enjoy such support. And portable wheelchair ramps have been utilized to allow us to get in and out of the house for walks around town. Deb has proven to be a more able chair “driver” on the open roads of Yarmouth than I have managed navigating around loveseats and chairs in our home. Thankfully no serious woodwork has taken a hit from my control of the power wheelchair. But it is early days.

Cyndy Adams and Kathy Plunkett enjoying time outside with the "mad bomber" in her purple-power-chair next to our new townhome community in Yarmouth, ME.

It would be a sin of omission to leave out a reference to Cyndy, our Florence Nightingale who arrived on the morning after Deb’s arrival back in Yarmouth and came each day thereafter at 9 am, often with bialys and coffee in tow. My greatest fear was that the novelty and collision of Cyndy’s family commitments would conspire to pull her away from us, so we were grateful that she was willing to support us for two months until we were able to locate a private duty nurse who has been with us for three weeks. Cyndy, and our neighbor, Kathy, are both trained on all the equipment in the home. Thankfully, we are now getting support with skilled nursing, allowing us collectively to better manage the demands of life and provide close-in support for our new reality.

Halloween was followed by Thanksgiving and Annie’s return from England was followed by the Advent season. As is typical for probably anyone reading now, those weeks went by in a blur. We enjoyed weekend visits from dear friends who traveled up the Maine Turnpike to spend a few hours with us, and Deb has grown accustomed to new daily patterns that divide each day into private and public hours. Our neighbors have been playing above the rim: running each Saturday to Whole Foods to grab groceries, making midweek stops at Hannaford’s for staples, dropping by with an occasional and unplanned dinner or adult beverage, scheduling a soup calendar each week, providing help getting trash and recycling out to the bins behind our building, and coming by to read to Deb in the afternoons. It seemed a bit rash to leave our two decade connection to Boston during Covid, but the welcoming community of our little neighborhood in Maine has been warm and welcoming arms that know our comings and goings and keep an eye on us each day. Deb has also made Wednesday mornings a time to connect with women from our new church, and they have been a tremendous source of support and prayers.

Our niece and nephew, Rachel and Colby Adams, and their "elderly daughter", Brinley, stopped by on Halloween.

Days have settled into new patterns. Deb is a voracious consumer of audible books, both from Audible and from BARD, a federal program of “talking books” that supports those with barriers to conventional reading. N.T. Wright has been on an auto-loop as Deb inhales his books, and Jane Austen has continued to contribute a steady diet of movies that transition busy afternoons into tranquil evenings. After a period of chaos and uncertainty, we cherish the boring routines of domesticity.

Christmas was, as every Christmas before it, a special exclamation point on the year. For the first time in probably twenty years, Annie and I headed out into a cold and gray December afternoon to cut our own tree, a balsam for the first time ever. We had it up in the house and decorated it within two days, certifying the beginning of Christmas and awaiting the arrival of the rest of the family just weeks thereafter. Christmas itself was its normal chaotic self: all the classic music from years past now piped through Apple Music and Spotify rather than CDs, the stocking exchanges hanging from a staircase in our home without a fireplace, and a new twist on the Christmas feast (all-day noshing on charcuterie, dumplings, nachos, pizza). Deb, a new convert to the “‘Die Hard’ is actually a Christmas movie” set, decided that Ted should enjoy Christmas Eve with Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman. And so it was! My nephew, Nick, reminded me that Hans Gruber’s “Merry Christmas” came out as “Shoot…the glass!”.

Great afternoon going "old school" to bring the outdoors in to our home for the Christmas season.

As is the case each year, within days the house was once again quiet and a little sadder as the noise died down. We are moving into 2022 with a sense of curiosity and wonder. Our quiet times are spent reading and thinking about the very present facts of our life, now over two years since our September 2019 earthquake. We are navigating with trepidation and determination, trying to make sense of roads we have never traveled. As usual, Deb is the heart and soul of our gatherings. On Christmas, after a day of presents and unending food and eggnog waffles, we played a game of “cards” meant to keep us talking when my mortal fear is silence. Each card, in this particular deck, contained a question meant to stimulate conversation. Deb’s question, pulled from the deck by me, read: “Describe a perfect day”. And her answer, written out on her Scribble application: “Waking up in my own bed next to you”. The game, probably feeling a bit like “Dad’s idea” up to that point, found its purpose in that card. And quickly became further unplayable.

Our baby, Anne, turned 21 just before we returned home and spent four months studying at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford.

We are now standing in 2022, peering into the future, hoping to catch up with all of you, and grateful for those of you who keep us both in your thoughts and prayers but also your travel schedules. Maine is a beautiful place to visit in the Winter.