Illness Part 9: Breaking Up

 "Can I break up with my endocrinologist?" I asked my primary care doctor, a General Practitioner.

He smiled, and said, "Well, you're the patient. You can do whatever you want."

That's patently false. I spend much of my time getting medical tests and otherwise jumping through hoops, so that my insurance will pay for things. I am not in charge. (But I should be, along with my GP.) In actual fact, my insurance company is in charge.

But, still, I was glad. When I started seeing the endocrinologist, my GP had said, "If anybody can figure out what's going on with you, she can." I looked forward to that. My body chemistry has been just not quite right all of my life. I have developed an aversion to hearing the word "should," as in, "...you should be feeling..." and, "...this should be working...", because often, that is not how I feel, and that is not how my body works.

After my thyroid was removed, my sister wanted to know what had caused it to be enlarged and covered in nodules. I told her, "Nobody seems to know, and they're not particularly interested in finding out." But I wanted to know. Something caused it. Should it be treated? Will it affect other things? So, my family and I were very excited to send me to a specialist, one who would figure it all out.

At my first visit, I went over things going back to my childhood. She seemed interested; she listened, and occasionally asked questions. But it soon became apparent that she was not looking for what caused the gland to need removed. Her entire process revolved around the fact that it was now gone.

Well, OK. It's probably hard to diagnose after the fact. I get that.

Still, any symptoms I had also were disregarded as irrelevant. Every appointment, I'd be handed a sheet asking me about symptoms, and I'd check box after box. Near as I can tell, no one even glanced at those forms. All that was ever discussed were my blood tests. When I'd bring up symptoms, I'd be told, "Don't worry. You're still adjusting. It will all even out eventually."

Ten years later I can say with conviction: it never evened out. Ever. (Illness Part 4: Symptoms) Through different medications, different doses, different protocols, I still have almost every symptom. I had them before the thyroid was removed, too. Obviously, there's something we're not looking at. I have become convinced that we don't yet know even what questions to ask, much less how to check my body. I just hear over and over about what "should" be.

Soon, I rarely saw the actual doctor, and just saw her physician's assistant. Not a deal breaker. I also rarely recieved eye contact from whoever treated me; they spent the entire visit, minus checking my vitals, looking at a screen and typing on a laptop. Years ago, this became standard. I don't know if the directions came from the AMA or the malpractice insurance or the medical board, but every single provider now spends their visit looking not at the patient, but at a laptop. They spend more time filling out forms to "prove" that they're treating a patient than they do actually treating patients. That annoys me tremendously. But, as I said, it's standard; I can't really get away from it.

I have listed the issues that I had even getting an appointment (Illness Part 5: Caring For My Health). It was just so exhausting, and gave me a bit of insight into the fact that the office ran exclusively on PROCEDURE. Again, not terribly unusual and not a surprise, but so aggravating. Every office seems to expect everyone in the outside world to know about and comply with internal procedures as a matter of course. This is a problem, because the layperson doesn't work in your office, so of course they are not going to know How You Do Things.

Now, actually being seen at the office, I had to deal with the office staff too often for anyone's comfort.

For instance, I had to be seen every month. To me, that means "roughly every 4 weeks" or "in 28 to 32 days." Not to the office staff; to them, it meant in 30 days, exactly. If day 30 landed on a weekend, the woman making the appointments would fuss and huff and talk about "getting back on schedule next month."

I once pointed out to her that my monthly blood tests were not 30 days apart. I was sent home with a paper, and I took it to the lab and got tested whenever it was actually convenient. Usually, I did it on day 25 or so, but it might be on day 15 or day 29. She looked at me blankly, like she did not understand the language I was speaking, and then gave me a long explanation of how I had to come in every 30 days EXACTLY "so the records will be accurate." The fact that when my blood was drawn seemed far more critical than when I walked in the door to discuss it with the doctor seemed to just pass her by. Finally I just ignored it and resigned myself.

Then one month, as I was leaving, I was asked to come back in exactly 30 days, and I balked.

"That's the first anniversary of my mother's death. I don't want to even leave the house that day."

"Oh, you'll be fine. Just take yourself out to lunch, or maybe go shopping."

I stood there in disbelief and stared at her. What I wanted to say is, "Oh, of course, a nice restaurant meal will totally distract me from the fact that my mother is dead." But I didn't say that. (In retrospect, I should have.) Instead, I said, "I would really like an appointment on another day. Can I come a day later?"

"No, no, no, it's thirty days. You'll be fine. How's 11:00?"

I wanted to scream, "It is not FINE. She is GONE. Don't you have a mother?" Instead, I got an appointment for 11.

It wasn't too many months later when I ran into an issue that she couldn't bully me through. The only appointment available in 30 days was at 8:00 am. The office is 30 minutes away from my home, and I had to pick up a child, a child who did not yet drive, from a class at 7:30 am. The class was 10 to 15 minutes farther away from my house, so if my child walked out on the very stroke of dismissal, and I had great traffic and luck with lights all the way home, I could potentially leave home at 7:45. The math simply did not work, especially during rush hour traffic.

I explained all of that, and asked for another day. No, of course, I HAD to be seen on that day, and that was THE ONLY appointment available.

"I WILL be late. I can't avoid it," I told her.

"Just get here as soon as you can," she said.

Fast forward exactly 30 days. I browbeat my child, with instructions to come to the car immediately at dismissal, to not stop and say hello or goodbye to anyone, just run out to the car. Eyeroll; "I will, Mom." And he did. I drove like a crazy person home to drop him off, then sped across town. I was, as promised, and guaranteed by the laws of physics, late.

"You're late," the receptionist huffed.

"I know. I told you that I would be. (This was literally the same woman who made appointments.) I had to pick up my son across the valley at 7:30."

"Well, I don't know if we can even see you now."

"When I asked for a different day, because I'd be late, you told me that you couldn't do that."

"The patient after you has already been called in!"

"OK, you gave her my time slot, so give me hers." 

"Her appointment was scheduled after yours!"

"So you said. You have two patients, and two time slots. You gave mine to her, so give hers to me."

"We can't see you if the patient after you has already been called in!"

At this point, I threw out any pretense of being polite. I raised my voice; I'm an actor. I can project. "I told you that today was not convenient for me. I told you that I would be late. I asked for a different day or time. I don't know why I'm here, anyway! I can tell you exactly how this appointment will go. I will walk in and say, 'I feel great.' She'll say, 'But your numbers are terrible,' and I'll walk out of here with a new prescription. I COULD DO THIS OVER THE PHONE."

She stared at me, then out at the semi-full waiting room, and said, "I'll see if we can get you in."

And just like magic, they could. It took all of 15 minutes for the entire thing, from being called in, to being seen, to being dismissed. I walked out of the office with the predicted new prescription.

That was the day I decided that I didn't want to go back.

"I don't ever want to speak to anyone but you about my medication," I told my GP. "If I'm sick, I can see whoever's available. But I don't want to discuss this with anybody else. Ever."

Well, I didn't quite get my wish. I've seen the Physician's Assistant repeatedly. Now, my doctor is going on a church mission out of state. Some day, he will retire. Maybe, by then, I'll be OK with that.

But I have never regretted breaking up with my endocrinologist.

It's OK

I spoke to a friend recently about a family member of theirs who's going through a hard time. A mother and adult child had an argument - an ordinary kind of argument - but Mom passed away unexpectedly the next day, so this meant that the last thing that they ever said to each other was angry (and maybe unkind). This sent the child into a tailspin. Child is having a really hard time coping with the idea that they "never got to settle things;" they worry that the relationship is somehow frozen in that angry moment, and can't ever be fixed.

I can't speak for their mom, but I can speak for me. I think a great deal, the older I get, about Aging People Stuff. I probably make people uncomfortable, because I get pretty effusive about telling people that I love them (you've gotta say it!) I also tell my kids what to do if I'm senile, what I want at my funeral, stuff they might need to know.

Here's what my kids, my family, my friends might need to know if I die after we've argued: don't sweat it. Seriously. I won't. Our relationship is what took place over the whole time we knew each other, not on one day.

Plus, if you ever made the mistake of thinking that I never argue with people, give that up right now. I disagree with most people about something. I have very little filter. Pretty much daily, I tell someone that they're wrong, or they tell me that I'm wrong. Plus, I'm a stubborn person, from a long line of stubborn people. Heads get butted, feelings get hurt.

I don't really know what it would look like to always agree with people. I grew up practicing a religion that was different from the other members of my household. I don't belong to the same political party as my husband. There are more people in my life who differ from me than there are people who are similar.

That's undoubtedly why I don't get overwhelmed by differences. I just expect them. And sure, there are people whose company I don't enjoy. But I don't wish harm on any of them. I hope that they live happy, healthy lives. I just don't need to be in the same room with them while they do it. But, lemme tell you, that list is so small, the chance that you personally are on it is next to nothing. And, I can't think of a single person to whom I couldn't be civil - and times that I choose not to be, anyway.

There will be arguments, hurt feelings, the stuff of being human. And that, too, is expected.  So, I don't really need to "settle" things. I'm not waiting for an apology. (If you're waiting for one, know that I'm sorry that your feelings were hurt, sincerely. But you don't need to please me, and I don't need to please you.)

I don't plan on any "saying goodbye" scenes before I die, either. There will be no calling people to my side to impart last words of wisdom or love or anything else. If I think it really needs said, I've said it. I'm not waiting to hear you validate me.

So, look, whatever either of us may have said or done or not, we're good. It's OK.

If your mom or dad or best friend or boss or anyone else left unfinished business, I'm really sure that they want you to let it go. They knew what you wanted to say. It's alright. Don't lose any sleep over it. It doesn't define your life, or theirs.

It's OK.

The Professor

Recently, one of my university theater professors passed away. I've been thinking about him, how amazing he was, how lucky I was to know and work with him.

Let's start with how I knew him. See, that description up above is a bit misleading; yes, he was "mine" as in someone that I studied under, and I enjoyed his company, very much. He was a university professor. But I was not a university student.

Auditions at the university are "open;" anyone can audition (but casting preference is given to students). One of my best friends convinced me to go with him the first time we auditioned; I'm forever grateful.

I got some of my best acting roles there from Dr. Bob Dillard, head of the theater department. He was elegant, slender, funny, acerbic, insanely talented, well read, better educated than I would ever be. He was great at keeping appropriate boundaries while still hanging out with teens and 20-somethings. I was 18 when I met him.

When I was 19, he cast me in "Evita." I was not confident about my singing. My mother had a beautiful voice, and I loved singing, but I was very insecure about letting anyone hear. I told people that I didn't sing, that "you don't want to hear me sing." My family and friends weren't big cheerleaders; the first time my high school did a musical, my father said to me, "What are you gonna do in a musical?" when I told him about the show. Stung, I said, "They need technicians!"

"Oh. I guess that makes sense," he said.

The only reason I tried out for "Evita" is that it had a huge chorus. I could "hide" my voice in the group.

During rehearsals, I learned to sing out, to project. I wasn't ready to play Eva, but I was then comfortable with being an actor who sings.

Later, I also joined my church choir. I can sing the "gloria" part of "Angels We Have Heard On High" in one breath, without sounding gaspy. (Unless my asthma is kicking my butt.)

"Evita" made possible every musical that I was in afterward, musicals where I had solos and a headset microphone. Years later, when I was in a large show, the vocal director pulled a large group over to me during rehearsal and said, "Listen to Sharon. Follow what she does."

I am a singer. That never would have happened without Bob Dillard.

Before I met him, one of his apparently standard admonitions had become legendary - in a musical, the cast was to "Sparkle, dammit, sparkle!" I adopted the phrase for non-theater use; my kids are familiar with it.

There are other phrases that so spoke to me that I still check my work, and my life, against them.

My taste in entertainment (and life) runs to squeaky clean. Still, I know that not everything will be G rated, and that's OK - in fact, it's desirable. I love crime shows, murder mystery books, serial killer trivia. So, I save my ire for things that I find unnecessary. For instance: Mel Gibson makes great historical pieces, but he loves gore too much for my taste; I usually watch his stuff after it's been "cut for TV." David Mamet is brilliant, but probably couldn't order breakfast without dropping four or five f-bombs. I don't mind most of the nudity in "Schindler's List," because I know what Spielberg is trying to say (even though I think that there are less revealing ways to do it). I do mind Amon Goeth's girlfriend being naked and throwing things at him so that we get to see her bounce. Put her in a negligee and the scene still works.

Sometimes, the university theater department would produce things that pushed certain boundaries. I rarely had to sit a show out because it pushed too far for me. And, since I think I'm pretty picky, I usually think that if I'm not bothered, no reasonable person should be.

I don't remember what show we were working on when someone asked Dr. Dillard if he was worried about offending people. While I don't remember the show, I remember the moment, the room we were in, and I remember the smile that spread across his face at the question. "No," he said. "I'm not."

"But what if they, like, complain to the university president? What if they write letters and stuff?"

Here's where he dropped that piece of wisdom that so spoke to me. "If we're not offending somebody, we're not doing our jobs," he said. Each of us has people we're willing to offend, and people we'd rather not offend, and it's not only impossible but dangerous to try to avoid offending anyone, ever. Draw your line in the sand, and stand by it. He encapsulated something I already believed in, in a compact sentence. It was brilliance.

I also remembering being giddily grateful to him on a personal level for the way he handled a conversation that had gotten uncomfortable for me.

There was a group of us sitting in the "green room," the lounge area under the stage where we hung out during rehearsals when we personally weren't working. We were going through the whole "getting to know you" thing of asking each other about our lives and backgrounds - where were we from, where we'd gone to high school, that sort of thing.

One girl said that she'd graduated from a local school. "Hey, me too!" I told her. That led to asking what year, who we both knew that had gone to high school with us, and so on. She'd graduated 5 or 6 years after I did.

"Who was your theater teacher?" she asked. It's a really ordinary question, especially under the circumstances, but I was unprepared for it, and I just froze. I'm a pretty open book, I lean toward TMI, but I just stared at her for an uncomfortable few seconds, then said, "I'm sorry. You've just hit on one of the very few areas of my life that I don't talk about."

"WHAT? What? Who was it?"

"Nope. Sorry."

"What happened? What did you do?" She kept asking, and I kept saying no. See, when you don't want to discuss things, people assume that there's a scandal. They want the dirt - they want to hear something salacious. This is just something that I discuss rarely, and I only discuss in detail with people who were there. I'm not hiding, I'm not embarrassed. It's just so uncomfortable that I'd rather not do it. My kids know this teacher as She Who Shall Not Be Named. They wouldn't recognize her name if they heard it.

But this poor girl was just convinced that there was a great story, a big scandal - and that I undoubtedly did something wrong - and she kept pushing. Finally, she looked at Dr. Dillard. "Do you know?" she demanded. I had no idea if he did or didn't. I'd certainly never discussed it with him.

He looked at me, right in my eyes. If he wanted to say, I couldn't stop him (and I wouldn't have). Then he looked at her and said, "Yes, I do. And I know why she doesn't talk about it."

Oh, the relief! The validation, that I didn't have to say if I didn't want to! I was just so overwhelmingly grateful.

I sincerely have no idea what he knew or didn't know. I never asked. It's entirely possible that he had heard some wildly inaccurate stories that cast me as a criminal mastermind or some such thing. I don't know if he actually even knew her name or not. All I knew in that moment was that he had my back. Even if there had been nothing else about him that I liked, this single incident would have assured that I thought of him fondly forever.

I wish that I could remember more about the last time that I worked with him. Unfortunately, something that still ranks as the worst thing that ever happened to me happened during that show. Trauma tends to stain everything, even unrelated things, so even though I actively tried not to associate the show, the people, the theater, plays in general, or anything else of the sort, with the trauma, it didn't work very well. It took 10 years for me to attend a show in that theater again; I have still never worked there since that show.

It's really a shame, because it was a great show, and a great part, the best part I'd ever had at the university. I always got the sense that Dr. D believed in me, and enjoyed my work. My husband assures me that I did a great job, and none of my friends ever told me that the performance stunk, so that's good. I assume that the show didn't suffer. Still, I'd like to have the memories back. Maybe they'll show up some day.

I saw Dr. Dillard occasionally after that. I sent him Christmas cards for years. Still, we never worked together again, and he eventually retired.

Last year, I was at a theater gathering, and had the chance to write something in a notebook for Dr. Dillard (who couldn't attend). Enough of my loved ones have passed away that I'm getting pretty effusive in expressing my feelings to people. You never know when they'll need to hear it, or when they'll be gone.

I don't remember what I wrote. It was probably inadequate and silly. It was only half a page or so. Still, I knew - I may never be in the same room with this friend again, and I need to let him know how amazing he is. He needs to know that I remember; the shows he cast me in, the things he taught me, how he backed me up when I wanted my personal life to remain personal.

He sparkled.

Now it's our turn. "Sparkle, dammit!"

War Is Bad

I was scrolling through a social media site, and said out loud, "Oh, I'm not even gonna read that one."

"What?" my son asked.

"An article titled, '20 TV Character Deaths You Still Haven't Gotten Over.'"

My son knows me. "Henry?" he said.

"YES. Henry."

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake was the first commanding officer on TV's "M*A*S*H." I loved Henry, in spite of himself. He wasn't really the kind of person I generally admired. He was bumbling, he was easily bulldozed over by those with stronger personalities, he cheated on his wife. But putting all that aside, he was well intentioned (one of my "musts" for people), he was a good surgeon, he was a loyal friend. The company clerk may have been the organizational brains of the outfit, but you couldn't really hold that against Henry; he may have been its heart. He cared about those under his command, and he cared about the wounded who came through their hospital. He could behave like a parent frequently, and like a commander when he had to, but he was always a good doctor.

My age was in single digits when "M*A*S*H" premiered, and I was only 10 when Henry got his orders to head home.

Home; they all wanted to go home. He'd miss the men, we'd miss him, but Henry was excited to go.

Maybe the story lines were kind of heavy for a kid in elementary school. My parents kept me - all of their kids - from things they were afraid would traumatize us or be over our heads, but "M*A*S*H" didn't fall into that category. We only had one TV, so whatever was on, we watched together, and we discussed it. It was one of my favorite shows. I understood the horror of war, the great lengths they went to in order to keep the horror at bay, the humor.

I understood that Henry was going home because the actor, McLean Stevenson, hadn't renewed his contract; that made me a bit sad, but it was OK. I'd watched the cast be shuffled on shows before. We'd have all summer to get used to the idea before the show returned.

I watched Henry say his goodbyes, watched him call his wife back home. He had a child he'd never met, born while he served in Korea. "Let's not tell anyone," he said to his wife. "Let's just show up for dinner at the club." He was so excited to think about the surprise his friends would experience.

He took off his uniform - he took off his ubiquitous fishing hat - and he put on a suit. He saluted Radar, his clerk, and he climbed on to the helicopter.

That's where the script they'd all been given ended. During filming, the producers told the cast, "We have one more scene. Gary (Burghoff, who played Radar) is the only one with any lines. Just react to Gary." They set up a scene in the ER - then they handed Burghoff the script.

We, the viewers, found out through interviews that Burghoff gave afterward that he looked at the lines and felt punched in the stomach. "You sons of b*****s," he says that he told them. "You're going to win an Emmy for this."

The reaction you see when Radar walks into the ER - that's the actor's reaction to the lines he was given only seconds earlier. He walks through the door, and Wayne Rogers, taking to the direction to "react to Gary," says, "Radar, put a mask on!"

Burghoff reads the lines. I know them by heart. "Lt. Col. Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors."

OH. Oh. Oh.

It was so painful. I cried then. I cry now. I cry every time I see the episode, every time I talk about that moment.

The reactions you see from the other actors - those are their actual reactions. Loretta Swit weeps.

I was not prepared for the reaction of some fans, though. The producers got nasty letters - "How could you? There was no reason for that!" "How can you treat your fans this way? We've been so loyal, and you hurt us!" "This is entertainment! We watch this show to laugh, not to cry!"

Even as a 10 year old, I understood what they were doing. This is why war is bad. This is why it is a thing to be avoided. Because people you love, people with everything to live for, people with wives and children and babies they'd never met, with friends and relatives and jobs waiting for them at home, die. Many of them are still too young to have wives and children, and they die anyway. War is indiscriminate; it takes everyone. And yes, TV is entertainment, and the show is a comedy, but it would be remiss if it didn't show that war takes lives, and not just the lives of soldiers, and not just people you don't know.

So, yeah, they ripped my heart out. Yeah, it still hurts. That's how I know they did their job. Because if there was a single sentence, with words of one syllable, that summed up "M*A*S*H," it would be, "War is bad." Because too many people die.

So, thanks, 20th Century Fox - even though it hurts.

And oh, yes - that episode won an Emmy.

Not For Sale

I will concede that I could be cranky and overreacting. Let's establish that right away.

Still, I keep hearing in my head the growling, snarling noises that the cartoon Tasmanian Devil makes; that's what I hear in my head, too, every time I see, "&^$%#@!" or the equivalent.

My parents bought their house, on an acre and a third, back when the house was one of only three on the entire dirt road, outside of town. We kept horses in the back pasture the entire time I was growing up, even as the city grew up to and then past us. Today, the property is on an ordinary street in an ordinary neighborhood - a neighborhood that's considered "aging" and not very desirable, real estate-wise. The house across the street was the home of local casino owners for a while, the only one in our neighborhood with two bathrooms and a family/rec room. Now, even it's considered fairly ordinary. Its most unusual feature is an RV garage; plus, many of the surrounding homes added on those second bathrooms and rec rooms.

My parents had originally planned to sell off pieces of their property, but they never did, so it's still an acre and a third. The largest portion, by far, is behind the house, reachable only by going down a gravel driveway.

My brother owns the house now. He isn't sure if he wants to live there or sell it, so for now, he rents it to a family member. The agent who came out to appraise it kept saying, "If only it was 2005. You could have gotten so much for this in 2005." Now, of course, it's worth far less, and "You'd never get your money back if you tried to develop it ("develop," of course, meaning "subdivide and build houses on.")" We understand that. If my mother had wanted or needed money more than she needed an unused horse pasture, she would have sold it in 2005.

I bring this up because it's relevant backstory.

My dad died years ago. After my mother died, while we were still measuring her loss in days, we started getting notes in the mailbox. "Hi! I'd love to buy your property! Call me." We rolled our eyes and tossed the notes. Is there a "for sale" sign out front? No. Then please assume that it's not for sale. Most of the would be buyers gave up, but some kept sending new notes, getting progressively pushier. One of the last ones said, "I can't believe you haven't taken me up on this offer!"

Really? You're surprised by this? Note, pushy neighbors, the continued lack of a "for sale" sign! Nobody took you up on your offer because the property is not for sale! This cannot be a difficult concept to grasp.

I mean, good heavens, my mother has four children, ten grandchildren and four great grandchildren. If my brother decides that he doesn't want the house, there will be any number of heirs who do. Does anyone honestly imagine that we're just waiting for the neighbors to swoop in?

I thought they'd given up; I hoped they'd given up. It's been a year and a half. For crying out loud, we haven't even emptied the linen closets. The house is occupied by family. If the owner wanted to sell it to strangers, he'd put it on the market, not wait for little notes to be dropped in his mailbox.

The day before Easter, we were in the back yard hiding eggs. Friends and family, including at least two toddlers, were invited over for a BBQ. Normal, wholesome family holiday, right? The neighbor came out, stood on their side of the fence and yelled over, "Are you selling that property?"

Truly, neighbor? You left "pushy" behind in the dust long ago.

My husband was the nearest one to the disembodied voice. He said, "Probably not." (He has an almost pathological aversion to uttering definitive declarative statements.)

What I said to him was, "Don't say 'probably.' They're thinking that you've left the door open to the possibility."

It's probably a good thing that he answered them, instead of me. What I wanted to say to the neighbor was, "Do you SEE a 'for sale' sign? NO! You do NOT! The property is NOT for sale, and if it was, we wouldn't sell to YOU! Stay on your own side of the fence, you opportunistic jackals!"

Which, you know, all things considered, may be an overreaction.

But the property still isn't for sale.

Can I See Your Registration, Please?

My mother set up her estate in such a way that almost everything was effortless and easy. Unfortunately, that makes the things that aren't easy stick out.

After a nine month battle with AT&T, I broke down and contacted the estate lawyer. Last time I had her send an e-mail - an e-mail! - it cost $278, so I'd been trying to avoid that option. She's very good, but she's not inexpensive.

The good news: I can legally ignore any further communication from AT&T or a collection agency, as per her advice. She assures me that "they are barred by law from pursuing a claim," since the "debt" was incurred after Mom's death. Plus, they failed to file a claim with the estate during the legally prescribed time period, so they're out of luck on two counts. So, score one for me. (Or her.)

Now, I get to tackle an agency just as much fun as a huge telecommunications giant; I get to deal with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

We got the notice in the mail that Mom's car registration was coming due. My brother is coming to town soon to take the car back home with him, so I thought that it would be a relatively simple matter of signing over the title.

Here, we hit a snag. I don't know where the title is. I can find electric bills from years ago, but I can't find the title. I'm sure it's filed somewhere that makes sense, but I probably won't find it in the next two weeks.

No problem; a duplicate title only costs $20.

OK, problem. The title is in my dad's name, despite the fact that Mom bought the car after he died.

She left a lot of things in Dad's name. She had always done that, and just signed things as "Mrs. E. R. Smith." It was legal and easy. I, however, cannot sign things as, "Offspring of E.R. Smith."

I have to take a copy of Dad's death certificate to the DMV, to show that Dad is, in fact, dead, and has been for a quarter of a century. Then, I need Mom's death certificate, to show that she, as Dad's surviving spouse and owner of all of their community property, once owned the car, and now is dead. Then, I will need to produce the paperwork naming me as trustee of the estate. Then I should be able to order a duplicate title, which I will then be able to sign over to my brother.

The minimum amount of time that the DMV will need to process this paperwork is six weeks. The registration expires in two weeks. So, I need to renew the current registration. No problem; it's the typical "owned by a little old lady" car. It has extremely limited miles, on a stellar driving record. Plus, there's no lien holder. The registration fee is only $15.

I renew my registration online, so I tried to renew this car that way. Problem; the software won't let me; I am not the car's legal owner. It wants me to set up an account for Dad.

Assuming that the software doesn't choke when I type in a birth date over one hundred years ago, or reject the plate number, since it's one digit shorter than those issued in recent decades (they kept the same plates, swapping from car to car when they replaced a vehicle), I will not create an account for a  deceased man, with the last name of Smith, no less.

The third option is to click, "Check out as a guest," which I tried to do. The computer informs me that (this sounds familiar), "This transaction cannot be completed online." I did it the old fashioned way, through the mail, with a paper check.

Now, we have to wait for the sticker for the plate.

I hope that my brother doesn't get pulled over while driving the car in the meantime. Just to get home from here, he has to drive through portions of three states. I can just imagine the conversation that will ensue if he has to explain to a patrolman why he is driving a car registered to his dead stepfather.

Ah, the joys of a society geared around documentation.

Postscript: one week later
Surprisingly, the DMV visit was relatively quick and painless. It seems that this is not the first time they've had to handle such a thing. I should have remembered the clerk's name so I could send her a cookie bouquet or something.

Taking on the Phone Cops

"I cannot understand," I said to the poor, hapless young woman on the phone, "why it takes an act of Congress to shut off my mother's phone."

My mother died five months ago. Her oldest two children live hundreds of miles away, and her third has health issues including heart problems and a pacemaker. Thus, she chose her youngest, me, to be the trustee of her estate, since it was most likely that I would be alive, well and available when she passed away. (As a bonus, I only live two blocks away from her home.)

My Grandmother Henriette, my mother's mother, had Alzheimer's. After having to deal with all the legalities and mess of having the court declare her mother unable to manage her own affairs, and then appoint someone to do so, my mom made her choices about how she would handle putting her own affairs in order. She put my name on her bank account after my dad died and long before she worried that she might be going senile. She sold herself everything she owned and held it all in trust, and appointed me the successor trustee. As these things go, it has been as smooth and painless as it could be, with everything already set up the way she wanted it. I've had to make very few decisions.

Most of her accounts closed with just a notification from me. Some, including her utilities, transferred easily to her granddaughter, the current caretaker of her home. The phone, though, has been an ongoing headache.

I mean, how tough should it be? I wrote a form letter: "Mrs. Smith has passed away. Please close all accounts in her name." I paid all her bills as they came in, and sent the letter out with each one. Pretty simple, right?

Some of the businesses wanted to know, "Would you like this account transferred to your name?" A polite offer, to be sure, and useful for things like her electric bill. But, I am old school and I can't quite wrap my head around having three phones for the four people who live in my house; I do not need another phone, especially if it's a landline at a residence that I do not occupy.

Besides, we heard nothing from the phone company; we just got another bill a month later. A record keeping screwup, I thought. We called the automated phone number and left a voicemail telling them to close the account. When did it become impossible to talk to a human operator, anyway?

The next month, we got a nasty notice with the bill. So, we called the number, AGAIN, and left a message AGAIN, plus we went online, as the bill urged us to do, even giving us the web address. Once you get into the site, though, it informs you that you cannot disconnect a phone online. Excuse me? YOU referred me here!

By the third month, we were repeating all the steps again, my husband, myself, and my daughter, in case the call had to come from the number in question. Calling the number printed ON THE BILL for Customer Service took you to an automated system that hung up on me after I'd been on hold for too long, and informed my husband in a prerecorded voice when he called from his cell phone that "it is not possible to disconnect a line over the phone." What?

By the fourth month, the notices in the bill were getting increasingly hostile, and so were we.

Were they not checking ANY of the systems that THEY put in place? Did no one actually work at the phone company? Were they noticing that the only calls made on that line, for literally months, were to their own system? I mean, they're supposed to know things, right? There's supposed to be some level of monitoring, right?

By now, we're all pretty ticked off. My husband kept saying, "We have to actually go into the office," but the thing is, there is no local office of AT&T. So, one day, I went to an AT&T store. At least there, there would be humans.

We walked in, my husband and I, and the employee chirped, "May I help you?" I surely hoped so, I told him, and explained the problem. "Oh. We can't do that. We don't have access."

*&^%($#!@+&!!!!!!

"We can call, though."

"Is it a different number? Because, believe me, we've already called."

Yes, he assured me, he could get a human on the phone. So, I went with him to the phone, waited while he went through elaborate steps that all but took a DNA sample, and he handed me a phone playing the melodious muzak of "hold." Soon, a human actually picked up.

"With whom am I speaking?" she trilled. I know they're trained - in fact, required - to ask this first, but it would be so nice, and timesaving, if they let me tell them what I need. Instead, I gave her my name.

"Thank you. And what is the telephone number?" Sigh. I gave it to her. Tiny pause, then an irritated voice: "I don't show you as the account holder."

"No. It's my mother's phone."

Irritated voice again. "I'm sorry, I can't - "

Enough. I need to stop you from being helpful so I can tell you why I've called. "She's been dead for months. I've been trying to turn her phone off since then. Her name is..." and I provided the name that should now be on her screen.

"I don't show your mother as the account holder, either."

Oh, for the love of Mike! "Well, my dad's been dead for 25 years," I told her, then provided his name.

"Oh. Yeah, that's it. I guess they never got around to changing it." No, I guess "they" didn't.

Then I explained what I wanted, and the steps I'd taken to get there. "I know that this isn't your fault, and that you don't make company policy, but I'm understandably irritated by now."

"I understand. Did you go online?"

I did not say, "Did you listen?" I said, "Yes. More than once." I then repeated that we'd also phoned and sent in a letter.

"What address did you send it to?" I told her. "Oh. That's the wrong address."

"Well, if someone had let me know that, I would happily have mailed one to the correct address. Do you have that address, so I can mail another one?" She did not. "Did anyone notify me that the address was incorrect? Did they forward it to the correct department? Has anyone made any attempt to communicate with me at all?"

"I don't have that information. I can't access that."

"Can you transfer me to someone who can?" She could not.

We went around and around, me trying not to bite the girl's head off, and her becoming more flustered. I did fairly bite her head off when she said, "I can take care of the bill. We'll have to prorate it..."

"NO. There is NO money actually owing. I notified you within DAYS of her death. I PAID the final bill in full. There is NO money owing at all."

"No, ma'am, I can reverse most of these charges, but you'll still owe from the day she died until the day you first notified us." Good gravy.

"OK. Fine. That'll be maybe a week." Far be it from me to keep the company from getting ten bucks or so.

At one point she said, "I don't think you're lying to me, ma'am. It's just that I have policies I have to follow." That's the problem. Do you ever feel that you're lost in the morass of a huge conglomerate that has lost touch with reality and humanity?

Poor kid, she couldn't do what I needed. I couldn't do what I wanted. How is that even possible? It's a friggin' PHONE, not the nuclear launch codes or somebody's life support.

"With every other account, I got, 'So sorry for your loss,' and then they cancelled the account."

"We really are sorry for your loss, ma'am!" She was sounding shrill and slightly distraught.

Sorry. That ship has sailed. You do not get to be sorry for my loss unless it's one of the first things you say to me.

She tried, repeatedly, to transfer me to her manager, who was "on another line," and finally told me that he'd call me at home. Poor kid, I told her several times, "I know this is not your fault." But I am starting to contemplate drastic action, like sending in another letter, but this time sprinkling talcum powder in the envelope, so it will get noticed and sent up the chain of command. I won't do it, but oh, my gosh!

Her manager never called. They finally turned off the phone, but the nasty note with the bill tells me that it was "suspended for non-payment."

AT&T, here's a Handy Business Tip: you may not want to threaten for months on end before you finally take action. Don't be hysterical and cut it off if payment is a day (or even a month) late, but we're headed into month six. You lose some credibility when people can mooch for months.

Assuming that they want to mooch. Assuming that they haven't tried to sever the relationship repeatedly over those months. You are the equivalent of a stalker ex, AT&T. Know when to let go!

Documentation

Our society places an inordinate importance on official documentation of all kinds. Want to travel? You need a passport. What's being taught in schools? Show me the standardized test scores.

Of course, not everything boils down to what can be seen on a piece of paper.

My father's death certificate actually tells you very little about his death.

My dad was a private trap shooting coach. One day, he left as normal to go to the gun club, about 20 minutes away. My mom was working in the garden, as she did every day. Dad came out to let her know he was headed to the gun club. "OK. See you later," Mom said. It was all very ordinary.

At the gun club, it was also very ordinary. He watched his students, chatted with friends. His students say that he suddenly put his hand to his temple and said, "Oh!" Then he collapsed. Someone called 911. One of his students, Heather, acted quickly and tirelessly, giving him CPR until emergency crews arrived. She managed to get his heart started again, but he needed artificial respiration.

At the hospital, they continued to try to revive him, but he'd had a massive stroke. He was pronounced brain dead.

They had him in the ICU, hooked up to a variety of machines, by the time someone phoned my mother.

She knew, all four of the children knew, all our relatives, most of his friends, even casual acquaintances knew that his biggest fear in life was being incapacitated and kept alive by machines. He'd told us all, over and over, never to let that happen.

He'd never put it in writing, though. Luckily, his doctors left the decisions up to my mom. Luckily, we all agreed – Dad had actually died at the gun club. He was already gone. He was 78 years old.

None of the children lived in the same town as my parents at the time. I was the closest, and it would take 3 ½ hours for me to drive there. Some of us, children and spouses, needed to arrange time off from work. The earliest we could all get to Mom was the next day. Mom decided that we needed each other, and should all be in town before they unplugged the machines. She asked the hospital to wait until the next day, to let us all see him if we wanted to. Then, they'd unhook all the machines.

Everyone who wanted to be was let into the ICU, one and two at a time, cousins, aunts, uncles, children and grandchildren. My children were 21 months and 8 months old. For me, seeing him was like seeing a familiar house that no one lives in anymore. He wasn't there.  I wasn't at the hospital when they unhooked him and officially pronounced him dead.

His death certificate lists his place of death as the hospital, of course. It lists his cause of death, rather inexplicably, as cardiac arrest.

I know doctors who are scornful of cardiac arrest as a cause of death, or a diagnosis of any kind. "It's like saying that someone died from abdominal pain. It's a symptom, not a cause." It's apparently a catch-all fall back to say, "Well, yup, obviously the heart stopped." Even more inexplicably, on Dad's death certificate in the spaces left for other medical conditions, those that were present but not officially the cause of death, the spaces are blank. There's no mention of the stroke that left him brain dead. I have no idea why, but I've wondered more than once if the person who filled out the necessary paperwork was actually familiar with my dad.

When I'm asked about my family history on medical forms, I list stroke as my dad's cause of death. Some day, someone may look at the records and assume that I had it wrong, but I think it's important that my doctors know what actually happened.

My mother died at home, in her own bed, which is an inestimably great thing for her. It meant, though, that the authorities probably had to work a bit harder to document her passing.

The morning that she died, I called the police department's non-emergency number and asked, "What do I do now?" Did I call an ambulance? The coroner? Was there a procedure? What is it? I didn't know.

"We're sending an officer over," she said.

We sat and waited, my middle daughter and I. The house already felt different. Two officers showed up in minutes, arriving in separate cars and conferring for a moment outside before they came up to the door. I wondered if they were steeling themselves for a scene inside; there wasn't going to be one, but they didn't know that.

They were very sweet, but they also had to follow procedure. They couldn't just take our word for who she was. They wanted my mom's ID, but when I said it would be in the pocket of the pants she'd worn the day before, they said they'd get it themselves. They wouldn't let either of us back into Mom's room. I thought that was silly – if we wanted to stage things, we would have already done so.

They closed the door while they checked Mom. "What are they looking for?" Terry wondered.

"Needle marks, bruises, signs of malnutrition," I told her. I knew they were also looking for things like bed sores, urine soaked sheets or clothes, signs of suffocation, wounds – any sign that she had been neglected or a victim of violence – but Terry was upset enough. I wasn't going to say that out loud.

"Oh. They won't find anything like that," Terry said.

"I know, but they don't know that yet. They don't know us from Adam."

They came out and informed us of what we already knew, that it looked as if she had passed away peacefully in her sleep. They phoned the coroner, and made small talk while we waited.

"Was she on any prescription medication?" No. "Any history of heart disease?" No. "Any history of high blood pressure?" No. "Any history of stroke?" No. "Under a doctor's care?" No. She hadn't seen a doctor in 20 years.

After several more of these questions, one officer asked, "How old was she again?"

"83."

"Ma'am," he said, "that's amazing."

"I know! She's amazing."

I predicted that the official cause of death would again be listed as cardiac arrest. It took them almost a month – long after the body had been cremated – to issue a death certificate.

The cause of death is listed as "arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease."

Well. Really? The space for "interval between onset and death" is blank, because she was never diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or arteriosclerosis. The certificate also indicates that there was no autopsy. Without an autopsy, how do they know what her circulatory system looked like? I'm willing to guess that they took a blood test; maybe it said that she had high cholesterol. Still, it seems a pretty big leap to get from there to deadly cardiovascular disease, and I have no idea whether they did any tests at all.

There are, again, no secondary causes. The form has 3 spaces for, "Conditions if any which gave rise to immediate cause stating the underlying cause last," and one for "Other significant conditions," but all that's listed is the official cause. Since she did not die under supervision by medical personnel, there is no certifying physician. The coroner's office filled out the part that says, "On the basis of examination and/or investigation, in my opinion, death occurred at the time, place and date stated." The official time, of course, is the time the coroner arrived at Mom's house. Even though she was dead for hours before that, she was not officially dead until Someone in Authority was able to Certify it.

In generations past, "old age" was a perfectly acceptable cause of death. History and literature are full of people who are described as dying from old age. Now, though, we find that unsatisfactory and vague. We can't possibly say that advanced age alone is fatal – we want an explanation, darn it. Why is old age fatal?

There are few other ways to explain using 36 letters to say, basically, "cardiac arrest," which basically means, "Yeah, s/he's dead, alright." Using a dart board or Magic 8 Ball also explains it, but not much better.

My teenage son said, "Isn't cardiovascular disease preventable?" He was annoyed that his grandmother's death might possibly have been something she could have postponed longer. (I miss her so much; we all do.) I had to point out, though, that they were just making a best guess. Without an autopsy, no one knows what her arteries, her heart or anything else looks like. More importantly, everyone who has cardiovascular disease wishes that they could live a normal, medication free life and then pass away peacefully in their sleep, at the age of 83. That's pretty much everyone's best case scenario, sick or not.

In fact, knowing that both my parents died painlessly, at places they loved, gives me great hope that I can prevail upon the Almighty for the same for myself. Let me have an ordinary day and pass away quickly, without warning. Ordinary days are what a life is built of.

I won't ever put "old age" as a cause of death on my medical forms when I'm asked how my mother died - but I'll think it.

Mom

My mother passed away 5 days ago.

It's extraordinarily painful. I knew it would be. It is impossible to measure the impact of a wonderful mother, or to quantify her loss.

She tried, for years, to get us used to the idea that she wouldn't be around forever. We knew, of course, but we didn't like it. "Grandma, you have to live to be at least 100," my kids would say. "I have to do no such thing," she would reply.

She was ready to go. As the baby in her family, she'd lost her siblings years ago. My dad's been gone for 25 years, and all of his siblings are gone, as well. Her children are all doing well, as are her grandkids. She was in generally good health, although walking was more and more painful. She lived in her own home and had no desire to ever live anywhere else. She was 83 (five years older then my dad lived to be.)

"You have to live forever," my kids would say, and she'd harumph - "Hmph!" she'd snort. She was their last remaining grandparent, so they hung on a bit tightly, and she just rolled her eyes. A very practical and unsentimental woman, my mother.

That's a compliment, by the way. I aspire, in almost every way, to be more like my mother. Sometimes when I say things like "unsentimental," people assume it's a criticism, or they translate that to mean "cold and unloving." Nothing could be further from the truth.

I feel thousands of words waiting to be written about my mother. I will need to write them in the days, weeks and years to come.

We know that death is the way of the world. None of us is getting out of here alive. We know that death is necessary and beneficial. I know, down to my toes, that Mom left this world exactly as she wished to. She had a perfectly ordinary day, then went to bed. She passed away in her sleep; had she been able to script her passing, that's what it would have looked like. I also know that she is happy, really happy, where she is. In the words of C. S. Lewis, "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." I am truly happy for my mom; I am sad for those of us temporarily separated from her. "What an adventure!" said my adored big sister, as we discussed how things are for Mom now.

It's nice now to talk to people who knew her, to have experiences like the one I had over the phone with my cousin Karen. I told her something Mom had said, and from hundreds of miles away her laugh came over the line loud and clear. "That sounds just like Aunt Bev!" she said.

Mom belonged to some people unrelated by blood as much as she belonged to me. There's no real word for the relationship, but it doesn't need defined. "Family" comes close. One woman, as much my sister as anyone my mother gave birth to, told me about a conversation she had with her own dad. Her childhood had been marked by chaos, divorce and worse. When she was an adult, he told her, "I really feel that I failed you. I always knew there was a safe haven for me, a place that would always be home, where I'd always be welcome. I didn't give you that."

"It didn't matter that he didn't give me that. I got it anyway," she said. It wasn't the house, although the house holds many memories. It was Mom.

Oh, the minefields of childhood, adolescence and adulthood that my mother guided all of us through! Some were ordinary; some would curl your hair. None of them caused her to so much as blink.

If we loved someone, they were welcomed with open arms. She chaperoned the high school drama guild on our trips to Disneyland. These weren't school sanctioned trips - we took them on our own, 15 or 20 kids and Mom. When my dad was out of town on a hunting trip, she let the drama guild camp in her acre plus back yard; she let Tony use the occasion to demonstrate his fire juggling. She let us virtually empty her rooms in order to dress our sets. She loaned us her only fur coat, because the script called for it.

We could say or do the oddest things, and know she had our backs. I was about 16 and had my best friend sleeping over when there was a knock on the door at 11 o'clock at night. To my mom, who'd grown up on a farm, that was the middle of the night. She'd been in bed since 9. Still, when I answered the door and discovered two other friends there, then crept to her room to whisper, "Tim and Joe are here. They want to know if they can have fudgecicles," the answer was, "OK." When my friend Scott wanted to spend the night sleeping in my van in our driveway, the answer was "yes."

Another best friend had a key to my car before I did. I had no license, and he did, so he used his own key to drive me places in my car.

"Can I build a Swiss Family Robinson tree house in your tree and just live in it?" one of my friends asked her once. "Sure. You just let me know when," she said. Every few years, he'd bring it up - "That tree still there?" and she'd say, "Still waiting for you." "Maybe I'll bring my son over, and we'll build that treehouse," he'd say. "I'll be here," she'd tell him. We've called it Tony's Tree for years. It will always be Tony's Tree.

This does not mean that she had no boundaries; the boundaries were carved in stone. It meant that she knew the difference between the big stuff and the small stuff, and she truly did not sweat the small stuff.

My oldest sister is 57, and, with Mom's passing she said, "Now I'll have to be a grownup." She's a remarkable woman, brilliant, with a great life, great kids, and adorable grandkids, but she still counted on her mom. I feel the same way. The last time I saw my mom, the day before she died, she was bailing me out of another jam. I'd locked myself out of my house, in my pajamas, so I went to borrow her keys. She laughed at me - as well she should - and loaned me the keys. Without my safety net, without my mommy to rescue me, I'll have to step up my game. The world looks different now.

But, I swear, I can practically hear her. I will do or say something, and know what Mom would say if she were here. She may have moved on, but she hasn't really left us.

Still, I will miss her until we are together again.

"I'll miss you when you're gone, Grandma," my kids would tell her, and she'd say, "Why? I've lived a good life."

Indeed she did.