Checking In

It has been almost two months since my last post, so at the very least I wanted to check in with family and friends who might be looking at the blog for updates.  

Nothing dramatic to report --- thank heavens!  In addition to a very packed schedule, Denise has been doing all of the necessary work of rebuilding a life post fire.  She and her family have moved into a very nice rectory of a church in the suburb of Rochester, Pittsford, right in the center of town.  Great neighborhood with shops and restaurants and cafes, quite a contrast to the challenging neighborhood of the 19th ward where her house sits.  As reported previously, the fire gutted the entire basement and the smoke damage was so extensive that the rest of the house is being taken down to the studs.  In short, it will take 3 times what she paid for the house to repair it, and 6 to 9 months of time.   In love with the home, Denise is willing to make the sacrifice, and is working with both the restoration firm and a contractor.  In the meantime, we have gone on shopping sprees for beds, linens, kitchen items, china and glassware.  I would be fibbing if I said it wasn't fun, although it did get tiring.  The result is some very beautiful things, which is a consolation of sorts after the extraordinary shock and disappointment of the fire.

On the medical front for me, nothing significant has changed.  I am overdue by a few weeks to have my blood and kidney tests done, but do not believe that there is any cause for alarm or hurry.  Unofficially, I believe that the protein levels in my blood have been elevated for four to five years, based on a common blood test done that many years ago that showed an elevation left unexplored until all of this more recent activity brought on by the symptoms in my face. My urine (can you believe I am talking about this kind of thing in a public blog!?!) is not frothy or clouded, which is the obvious sign of protein spills that indicate adversely affected kidney function.  It is a late sign, and I will have the 24 hour test sometime in the next week or so. Brandeis has asked me to speak in September so I will have the echocardiogram plus these two tests done at the Boston Medical Center then.  Apart from a textbook case of the flu a few weeks ago, and the continual pain in the nerve, I feel fine and am involved in all of my usual activities.  The only risk I think I have of a heart attack at this point is every time I open one of the bills for these tests, procedures, doctors and medical centers -- no joke!

As most everyone who reads this blog knows I celebrated my 51 birthday since the last entry. I had a wonderful couple of days.  First, some years ago I discovered that my actual birthday is April 30, not May 1st.  This recognition is due to the fact that I was born 5 minutes after midnight Eastern Daylight Time, which means according to the "real" calendar, 5 minutes after 11pm.  That date places me on the birthday of both my beloved father and his older beloved brother Bill Morgan (nee Anthony Mitrano).  Now I celebrate that day as a family birthday.  Denise came down from Rochester, the boys came home from school and because our kitchen was torn up in the process of putting in a new floor we ordered T-bone steaks from John Thomas (where they have a great deal so long as the Dow stays below 10,000) and opened my last bottle of an Oregon pinot I have been holding for a special occasion.  The next day Denise, Sam (who was out of school for dental work) and two wonderful friends Christina and Sarah and I had lunch at the new Green Cafe in Collegetown.  That night, Denise and I went up to Rochester and ate at Maxie's, across from the Eastman School and Theater downtown.  And then to top it off, Saturday night we had a party at the lakehouse with many wonderful people and friends and the children, including Rob.  I could not be happier or feel more loved.  It was a perfect birthday weekend!

Such occasions are always time for reflection and so here is mine: perhaps because of events such as the surgery and diagnosis of a serious disease I have taken stock of my life at a deeper level than usual.  I am here to report that my 50th year has been, notwithstanding 10 hours of neurosurgery, the shock of learning that I have a "fatal" disease and all of those $%^&* medical bills, the happiest year of my life.  Words fail me to describe the pride, love and joy I take in my family and friends.  I have come to know people in so many more deep and meaningful ways who were already in my life, and some whom I have now met for the first time as a result of this experience.  The children mean everything to me, and I take enormous pleasure in their every step: a good grade, or the challenge of a poor one, the enlightenment moment of knowing now what they would like to do in life (Rob, fireman; Bonnie, nurse), a base hit or better yet a stolen base for Sam and an inevitably funny moment with Nikko who lives up to the Japanese translation of his name "sunshine" and "light" every day.  

I am in D.C. for a Board Meeting of EDUCAUSE, departure back to Ithaca soon.  While here, and forever when I think of D.C. I remember with much emotion my Aunt Toni and Uncle Bill. My Aunt Toni especially, because in her last years in D.C. alone, I took advantage almost every time I visited the area to see her.  Aunt Toni saved the quality of my life many times.  When I was 17 and so unsure of where or how to go to college, she gently guided me.  (Uncle Bill put the frosting on the cake when he helped my father understand my decision, as disappointing as it was for him that I did not help him with the restaurant.)  When I came back from my first semester from college in London a failure, Aunt Toni knew, and was willing to say out loud, that I was struggling with my sexual identity and a relationship that preoccupied me beyond study.  So many years later she offered guidance about the upbringing of my children, was kind more than curious to recognize my sadness in the breakup of my first marriage, and she was supportive and joyful about my second one.  Aunt Toni, Antonia Bell Morgan, was truly an extraordinary person by any measure: full scholarship to Oxford, public speaker, psychologist, a professional "war bride," mother of three very beautiful and successful children in each their own right, five grandchildren, brilliant, funny, dignified and of a refined spirit as well as mind and heart.  There are many more stories to share about Aunt Toni, her life, and how she elevated mine; here is not the place.  But being physically in D.C. reminds me that I miss her always, and cherish the memory of my good fortune to have been but a small part of her life.

So I will get into the car soon and drive to Ithaca.  Statistics being what they are, it is possible that all the concern about a disease with a relatively unpredictable physiology could be dust in the wind were the car to malfunction at 70 miles an hour or a driver to swerve into my path. To those thoughts, and all that I have recorded here, I only want to say that I fully expect to make it home in one piece.  For that matter, I hope to live another 40 years.  But should the universe in its ineluctable wisdom take me at any moment, I have loved and I have lived, even in some moments big, and am content to have done so.