2023 CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTER AND BLOG

We put up the trees early, in November (one on each floor) as we were so excited to have made it to another holiday season. At ages 89 and 78, this is no joke and 2023 was an exceptionally difficult year, fraught with all kinds of land mines. The bridge to our beach at our place on Orcas Island was sabotaged by about five fir trees in a storm. Our long driveway was reworked and a new bridge constructed with better drainage in the gully to the beach. All of this was barely finished before Rich’s family members arrived in July. His son Mike and new wife Kristen Donavon, and Rich’s daughter Michelle Lampe Jacquin, and her daughter Jenny Jacquin Kissinger visited us for about a week (see photos). All live in or near St. Louis and in one day, they flew out together to SeaTac and drove North stopping at Pike Place Market and then Deception Pass Park before catching an evening ferry from Anacortes to Orcas. Orcas is sort of a Brigadoon Place. In that story the town vanishes and only reappears at certain times. Orcas has become more difficult to find since the Washington State Ferry system is now unreliable due to failed contracts to build new ones. But the Lampe family persevered and arrived together laughing and ready for fun. Our house on Orcas is small so they stayed in a condo at The Landmark Inn in the village of Eastsound. Great to see all of them and to meet Kristen. Mike and Kristen went on to visit his son Ben and family in Vancouver, B.C. but Jenny and Michelle stayed a few days, went whale watching and caught a seaplane from Rosario Resort back to Lake Union in Seattle.

Photo of Rich with (left to right) daughter Michelle Jacquin, granddaughter, Jenny Jacquin Kissinger, (Rich) Mike Lampe and his wife Kristen Donavon Lampe

Michelle and Jenny leave Orcas on a seaplane

Soon after they left, Rich and I became horribly sick with something that brought me a temperature of 105 degrees. I was so sick I even called for my mother who died in 2014. Rich struggled with temperatures in the low 100s but managed to visit the Orcas Clinic twice and still care for me up in the loft. We spent most of July and August on Orcas to rest and recuperate. I practiced sitting very still and found I was able to see so much wildlife, from an otter on the beach to the eagles that perch in our trees, to a lone male deer who visited daily to ravens and hummingbirds at our feeder.

Last January, Rich was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease by a neurologist we waited to see for a year. This threw me into a caretaker role. I became prime driver, bill payer, scheduler for Rich’s doctor visits (he has ten doctors, five prescriptions). I found wonderful help through a former writing student who is the social worker for the Orcas Senior Center. She is dynamite and soon connected me with support groups, a counselor and other resources. Thank you Heidi! The Orcas Senior Center is an amazing and happy place, always bustling with people playing music or eating lunch or chatting and challenging each other in card games at the table in the entry. Thank you to all who helped me despite the fact I am a part-time resident. Over the next six months, I saw little change in Rich but I was exhausted with overload. Sure he forgets things as do I but he was still out fixing our complicated gate opener or clearing snow at Union with his backhoe.

In May we learned that our last piece of property in Tenino, next to the house where we lived for 17 years, had been burglarized. That launched a repair project that took us to this month. As I write, there are two potential buyers, both eager to buy the place.

In June, Rich saw the neurologist and I came with him this time (due to COVID, I could not in January). The neurologist said, “Oh, you seem so much better!” Then in a visit to Rich’s cardiologist, he turned to me and said clearly, “Rich does not have Alzheimer’s. If he did we would have seen it in his 70s. What he does have is heart disease.” He drew a complicated diagram and declared Rich would live a few more years. Rich’s internal medicine doctor remains attached to the Alzheimer’s label as does the neurologist but Rich and I decided to move on. He seems pretty good for someone nearly ninety. We do yoga weekly, regular morning meditation, walk at the nearby State Park, and are active in our yards at both houses.

I did find myself struggling with Rich on Sunday mornings at the grocery store. I told my friend Abby about this one day and she said, “Write that up!” so I did. Writing this poem helped me see things in a different light.

CAPTAIN OF SAFEWAY by Susan Glenn Lampe

In his mind, my husband Rich has become

The Undisputed Captain of the Sunday morning grocery store.

He strides through the transparent glass slider doors of Safeway,

Man on a Mission,

In place of a cane, he grabs a cart.

He booms out “Ahoy! Jasmine!” to his favorite employee at the information desk.

Confidently, he strolls to retrieve the newspapers she set aside for him when he called at five a.m., a copy each of The New York Times and Seattle Times.

Such are the changes age has delivered to our elderly lives.

Nearly ninety, Rich’s white hair glimmers beneath a dark blue Orcas cap.

For years he has dedicated Sunday mornings to searching out these papers

For me, his former journalist wife.

No easy task in a rural area of the Pacific Northwest

The Times has been ever disappearing,

First from the quick shops, then the grocery stores, even Starbucks.

Safeway still offers a few copies that vanish before noon.

Rich and Jasmine are co-sleuths in finding these for me

With shock, I have realized that Rich and I are now the ages of people pictured in the obituary pages

We arrive between nine and ten, despite rain or fog or ice and snow.

Once Rich came alone but when he turned 89, I appointed myself

designated driver so I drive, he rides but once we arrive, Rich commands the visit

We shop a little, grab a latte.

I send him to search out grocery items.

Forever a diplomat, he chats with everyone, asks where to find things,

His sturdy, substantial body blocks people in the aisles; he doesn’t notice.

I try to disappear, focus on what I need.

Alright! I confess! I hide from him.

A bit of the sailor still lives in the Rich who trods the aisles

Once he was captain of our 35S5 Beneteau sailboat,

Rich navigated her, shiny, white and sleek, through shifting tides, around hidden dangerous rocks,

Many years, we moored our boat overnight up into Canadian waters of Lake Ontario, then Puget Sound

Now we traverse the aisles of Safeway where they sell stuffed fluffy gray dolphins

Rich’s sailing adventures lapse into foggy memories

But if you ask, he’ll regale you with stories when you show him how to find an item on Aisle Four.

An Addendum. When on Orcas, Kelly at Darvill’s Bookstore, puts aside a copy of The New York Times for us and we go to another store to get the Seattle Times.

We wish you a lovely holiday, a few days of peace, a time to care for others, spread a little laughter and joy. Thanks to all who still read my BLOG. I am working on a few writing projects, a book of essays and poetry and may one day finish my historical novel. The role of caregiver was overwhelming for me but I think I have adjusted enough to resume writing again. Thanks to the Union Poets, a remarkable group who sign in to Zoom from all over the world one Tuesday night a month under the direction of Sterling Warner. They give me a reason to keep going as a few poems a month are required.

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Susan Glenn Lampe

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