The Kindness of Neighbors

It’s not unusual to get snow up in Maine before January, although the flip side is it’s also not unusual to have no snow before January. This past week we were hit with two storms, one Saturday night into Sunday and then another Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Weekend storms are the best because, truth be told I don’t have to drive in them. I can take my time clearing the driveway, clearing off my car, etc. During the workweek; however, it’s a different story. Luckily Mom and dad have an attached garage that the car can sit in, a must have when living in a cold climate in my opinion.

I woke up Wednesday morning knowing I would have just enough time to clear the end of the driveway to get the car out (as the town had already plowed the street once and the snow was piled up at the end). There was no way I was getting up any earlier to clear the whole driveway with either the shovel or snow blower. Besides, I don’t think the neighbors would have appreciated a loud snow blower at 4 am and my back wouldn’t have appreciated shoveling all that snow and then sitting at work for 9 hours. I figured I would take care of it when I got home and planned a simple dinner, so I could focus on the driveway afterwards.

When I pulled up to the house after work I noticed the driveway was clear, the walkway to the front door was clear. I went inside and asked Mom and Dad who cleared it. It was Gene, their next door neighbor. I asked, did he call beforehand or stop in afterwards? They said he did not. He just came over and snowplowed the driveway and walkway and then went home. A real Mainer, with a great story to tell about seemingly everything and every time you see him, Gene is retired and older than both my parents.  Not only did he have one of his knees replaced earlier this year (with the 2^nd one needing a replacement sometime in the new year) he is also taking care of his wife and their house and yard by himself. I called Gene to thank him, as he didn’t have to do this kindest of gestures. Always the joker, he said it wasn’t him, it was the turkeys (we have a decent sized flock that comes through both our backyards almost daily). I joked back that it was good thing I was putting feed out for them then! In all seriousness though, I thanked him from the bottom of my heart, because it wasn’t so much for Mom and Dad’s benefit that he had done this (they were in for the rest of the week, until Friday afternoon when there were a couple of appointments to go to), it was for my benefit. Knowing the situation and the nature of me trying to do it all, he did it just so I didn’t have to when I got home. It was one less thing for me to worry about and one of the best surprises ever.  

I have been so blessed to have gotten to know some incredible people during this experience following Dad’s stroke. Gene is certainly one of them and has helped restore what had been tested, my faith in the good that I know is inherently in all of us. It does exist.               

Followup

Dad had another six month followup neurology appointment late last week. Almost a year after the stroke he was told he does not have to see her anymore. That was good news for me to hear, because it meant that the injury sustained had not worsened. No new bleeding is a good thing. It was recommended though, that he go back on blood thinners. Even though he is still not in Afib, he was once and that still puts him at risk to go back into it without any warning, which could cause a blood clot and potentially another stroke. This is something his PCP Dr. Biswas has been aware of, which is one of the reasons for over 6 months we were going to bi monthly visits to see Dr. Biswas (the man is very thorough). Preferring to really give Dad's body the time it needed to heal, we've been waiting when the eventuality of being put back on blood thinners was going to happen. The last time Dad was on blood thinners was right after the initial stroke, which caused him to have a hemorrhagic mini stroke. He hadn't healed enough up to that point.   
You have people that aren't in Afib, people that are and then the select few that are or were at some point, but not all the time. Dad falls into this last group. He was not in Afib the morning of the stroke and as I mentioned he hasn't been in it since.
Needless to say though, it is back on blood thinners and now weekly visits to his PCP for the blood tests associated with the maintenance of being on blood thinners. He is being started off on a low dosage and depending on how well he does, the dosage will increase to the therapeutic levels he will need to be on. In the end we were all given the pros and cons of what is happening, along with the risks involved. I've been called a foolish risk taker in the past, but you know what? You never know if you never take the risk. We got this covered.              

Taking Solace

Over the summer a family friend came up to visit my brother PJ and she wanted to come up the coast to visit Mom and Dad. We all went out to dinner and afterwards as she and I were crossing the street with my parents, she pulled me aside and commented on how good Dad looked. Then she said, “It’s just sad, because he used to like to talk all the time.”  

A friend watching a video I posted on the blog of Dad maneuvering a lawn chair to a spot in the backyard told me she cried when she saw it. I wrote last winter how PJ noted, with some sadness, all the tools in Dad’s garage that he was never going to use again. All remembrances of things past.

Then I thought about it. We all have things we wish we had done, chances maybe we should have taken. In this context, Dad was pretty lucky. As long as I can remember Dad wanted to move to Maine. Anyone who knew him, knew he wanted to move to Maine. Sure, there were things he didn’t get to do in his lifetime like join the peace corps or move to Argentina (these are things I found out he had toyed with in his younger years), but he did move to Maine after he retired from teaching at 55. Retire at 55? How many people do you know have retired at 55? At 42, I can’t even imagine that and yet Dad did it. Not only that, but he retired to the place he longed to live and fulfilled the dream he had of owning acres of land tucked away in the woods. I’m talking here about the Sebec house, the 1^st house Mom and Dad owned when they moved up here. Located just outside of Dover-Foxcroft and an hour north from Bangor Maine, the Sebec house was a great space. More room than they really needed, it sat on 12 acres of woodland filled with conifers, hard woods, soft woods, a little bit of everything. Mom, Dad and my Oma lived there until Oma passed away in 2004. For just over 5 years Dad had the opportunity of his lifetime and he was truly in his glory. He designed walking trails throughout his property, lumbered his own firewood, laid out his flower gardens and all in a remote location where you could only see the one neighbor across the street in the winter time, when the leaves that shielded the house from the world fell down. Never one to just sit around, Dad even got a part time job, taking care of a small farm the town dentist owned. He loved it and would tell us stories about the new pig they got every spring (and then how many pounds of pork they got in the fall), the fences he had to mend for the horses, the chickens he fed, the family’s Great Danes he watched over. Every time I talked to him there was a new story about the farm, a new story about their house. You could hear it in his voice. I could see it on his face every time I visited.   

Eventually the commute to Bangor for church and other things became too much. Once Oma passed away they sold the house and moved to Bucksport, a half hour south of Bangor. It’s a modest house on maybe a quarter of an acre, hardly the spread they had in Sebec. Over the years Dad has made the Bucksport house and yard his own, accomplishing improvements on the inside and shaping a little nature sanctuary on the outside. There are times: however, when we still talk fondly about the Sebec house. Dad really did get to live out his dream and continues to live it out by still being in his house, still living in Maine and that is something to celebrate. Everyone should be so lucky.