Hope is the thing...

I took up fish as pets when I lived alone and got into the hobby more when we moved to Midtown, where our house had a pond. I raised a koi named Moby and a dozen or more goldfish, some of which grew to as much as a pound. It became a miniature Japanese garden, with a bonsai bald cypress, dwarf bamboo and such.

For a year or so, I had a small fan-tail goldfish that I kept in a tank indoors. I named it Hope and two years ago put "her" out in the pond with the others because she had outgrown the tank. She held her own against the other fish, even though smaller and laughingly slow by staying out of the way. She could go weeks, particularly in the winter, without being seen, but it was fun to bring Debbie outside and show her that Hope was still alive.

The buyers of our house couldn't manage the fish, so I've arranged for all but one to be adopted. Hope though, I rescued in a bucket brought her to Decatur where I put her in a small pond on the patio. For the first week, she lay on her side against the quiet throb of the water pump and rarely moved. On a guess, I sought out another fan-tail goldfish that was about her size, named her Grace and brought her home. In minutes, they were both side-by-side back near the pump.

I've added some water hyacinth, sea fern and a few pets of their own and now Hope and Grace seem right at home. Chaucer would have the literary sense to have a moral to such a story as this, but it is just a little bit of, and perhaps about, life.

Today is the 20th "anniversary" of Chernobyl and yesterday was the day set aside to mark the Holocaust. Eliot was right when he began The Wasteland with, "April is the cruelest month." Still there enough beautiful, kind or good things here and there to keep one going.

A year ago we were waiting for John's marrow donation and learned we would have an additional week's delay. Now he is a week from finishing college. His latest post on http://johnvscancer.livejournal.com/ was asking what to do with his life. Like we ever figure that one out. Still, it is all the more important a question for someone like him.

If John asked me what to do, I'd be surprised, but I'd say find something you like to do, someone you like to do it with and then let life take care of itself. It may be cruel or kind and much of it is beyond more than prayer.

Anyway, my life has lots of boxes still in it from the move, no where to unpack them and lots of small house problems to deal with. Later.

It's been more than a few days, but it is hard to update when so much is happening.

John remains well and has tolerated Debbie and I moving into the rest of the house. He has been strong enough to research and write a 20 page paper for his major religion class on the social life of monks in the middle ages. It was a different kind of hard work for him now than it was for him in the past and for most of us now. Writing is a mental, and sometimes physical act of juggling and constructing ideas into words, sentences and a message.

Many post-chemo patients have problems with short term memory and focus, which would make things like writing papers tougher. I don't see those signs in John, but I do think he tires more easily, which means he has to start earlier and work harder than I used to see in him.

He is using the same approach in working toward graduate school. Starting early, planning and such. He will take the GRE in the next few weeks and is getting recommendations and his application together for Georgia State.

Until all this happened, I would never have encouraged John to go to graduate school, but now it is the best of all choices for him. The mental exercise and discipline will be good for him. The academic environment is a place he is comfortable in. He doesn't have the stamina for a full time job and he is still at the stage where relapse, GVHD or both are as possible as not. Fortunately, I will be able to keep John's health insurance in place for several more years, which for too many turns out to be the difference between life and not. The following was part of an AML list serv posting yesterday:

There is a 15 year old
boy in Atlanta who is in desperate need of a bone
marrow transplant, they have a match, however he has
no insurance and Medicaid has refused coverage of
the treatment. He has been told he needs to raise
$500,000. We have been working very diligently to
raise the money for him and to date have collected
$185,000. They have told him that once he reaches
$250,000 they will begin surgery and then give the
family 6 months to pay the rest. The donations have
been going through the www.childrenscancercenter.org
and can be made online at
www.active.com/donate/childrenscc for non profit or
to www.active.com/donate/danyal - At this rate, we
are about $70,000 short for Danyal right now and he
needs help or one more child will die from this
terrible disease. Ultimately, the family will have
to pay the entire amount. They are giving him two -
three weeks without the transplant.

Amid all the moving into our new house, Courtney made her way back home from Peru. There were conflicts in her flight reservations, but we got her home and mostly in one piece. The scar above her eye is healing cleanly, and we will see how it settles over time. The immediate problem though was that she came back suffering again from stomach problems. They were bad enough that she spend part of her first day back in the hospital getting fluids. By Tuesday, the tests showed a bacterial parasite, which she is not getting treatment for. She is still a bit week and needs to get some strength back. Courtney is working for a few weeks in the afternoon with the children of a family from work, covering the after school hours. It is not "heavy lifting" and she seems to like it.

I am with Debbie at the Greenbriar where her firm is meeting for several days. With so much going on, it was hard to get away, but the distance may help me recover from all that is swirling about.

When the children were young, I drove them to school each day, a brief time we three had together free of other influences. Out of design, I would engage them in conversation about one thing or another with the hope it might pass on some point about the joy of learning something new or about getting along in life. Even though I was often sad, I enjoyed making it fun. We dealt in humor, irony, science, trivial bits of literature, honesty and feelings. They seemed to enjoy being accepted as if adults and, if they didn't appreciate the time, they played along because I enjoyed the moments.

Often on the drives, I had some message I wanted to convey. On the first day of school each year, it was the same one. There would be new kids in their classes and they should be sure to talk to each one because they wouldn't know anyone and would be afraid. On the second day, I would tell the kids that the easiest way to get good grades was to start the year working hard and showing lots of interest in class. This would fool the teachers into thinking they were good students and lead to better grades. I was honest about the risk that they might actually get interested and continue to learn because they enjoyed it, but that was a risk worth taking.
Kids, at least today, understand irony and can respond in kind. By the second grade, Courtney had dubbed that lesson, "Lecture 1" and enjoyed cutting me off before I had begun with just those two words.

All of that is to say that Courtney's latest post on her travel journal at http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?go=Corchita7 is a stream of semiconsciousness on a most unfortunate lesson she learned this week in Peru. I won't give it away, but when she called to tell me about it, she began with that line parents hate to hear (no, not "Dad, can you send money") but "First, I just want you to know that I'm OK."
When I sent Debbie to read her post, her response was, "It sounds like lecture 40,235." I'm pretty sure I never taught that lesson on the way to school.

Let's see. And in other news, we have a firm contract on the house in Midtown, close on April 28 and move on April 12. Unfortunately, that is Passover, but it doesn't actually start until sundown. There is a Jewish tradition derived from the Passover story in which you place a decorative container containing a small scroll on your door frame as a sign, this time of welcome. We will get to move ours to our new home on Passover.

There is a lesson in there somewhere.