Mike had battled depression off and on for decades. He sometimes tried to get relief with an antidepressant, or help from a therapist, or both. And although life was not easy for either of us at his lowest points, there were plenty of moments of lightness, and there was consistently more light than dark. Then, in late 2005, early 2006, indifference and darkness were becoming more the norm. And, frankly, I was pissed.
We were no longer tied to full-time teaching jobs. We each had meaningful work, Mike as music director at UUSS and also with various other music projects and professional singing jobs. I was working on No More Sad Goodbyes, the ninth book in my Hamilton High series of teen fiction, and doing occasional author visits to schools, teacher workshops, and conference presentations. Still, our schedules were flexible enough for overnights in San Francisco, or with Sharon and her family in Woodacre. We visited Matt and Leesa in LA and were happily anticipating the birth of their daughter. Our home in Gold River was spacious and inviting—an easy place for friends and family to gather. We were financially secure.
These should have been very good years for us, but I was finding it more and more difficult to deal with Mike’s dissatisfaction. He didn’t like Sacramento. He wasn’t appreciated at the church. He was upset with the direction Cindi’s life was taking. He hated George W. Bush. Bush’s arrogance with his misguided determination to drag us into a war with Iraq, the horrible loss of American lives and even more Iraqi lives, seemed to both of us to be criminal. I didn’t disagree with Mike’s assessment of our president and his cronies, but his over-the-top ranting was wearing. One time, after hearing Mike’s litany of all that was wrong with his life, I accused him of robbing us of the great pleasure of our retirement years that was easily within our reach. “Sorry!” he’d said in a way that meant “leave me alone” rather than that he was truly sorry.
All I knew then was that the love and support I had so long felt from Mike was waning. The potential goodness of this stage of life was being sucked away by his negativity. If only I had known that Mike’s brain was doing him wrong, I could have been more patient, more empathic. At least that’s what I like to think. But I didn’t know, and the more self-absorbed and distant Mike became, the more resentful I became. Because being resentful was not something I commonly experienced, I even resented becoming resentful.
Although the balance between good times and bad times was tipping, a scattering of moments of love and lightness were still within reach. I still held hope that a change in meds would ease things, or that some change of circumstances would help, or that a therapist would ask the questions that would lead Mike to a happier state.
Although Mike often displayed either disinterest or dissatisfaction with me, he was still a totally dedicated grampa—gentle, playful, funny. He loved little children, and he especially loved our grandchildren. I also loved them wholeheartedly, but my grandparenting style, like my personality, was less effusive and more practical than Mike’s. We were a good balance. A good team.
When Sharon and Doug brought 4-month-old Subei home from China in 1995, we were determined to be as big a part of her life as we already were in the lives of Cindi’s two children—Ashley (5) and Kerry (3). They’d always lived within easy driving distance, and we frequently visited back and forth. Maintaining regular contact with Subei would be more of a challenge, since she lived 400 miles away. Still, we planned to see this new baby at least every six weeks. The 800-mile round trip from Altadena to Woodacre was demanding, but getting to know that amazing little Subei creature and having her get to know us would be well worth the effort. One of the main reasons we moved north in 1998 was to be close enough to Subei to be a regular part of her life, too. And although Sacramento was still 100 miles from where Subei, Sharon, and Doug lived in Woodacre, a 200-mile round trip was a whole lot easier than the 800-mile round trips we’d been making from Altadena.
For the previous 30 years, ever since Dale and Marg had moved to Sacramento, we’d been visiting the capital city at least once or twice a year. Our longtime friends, Jeannie and Bill Ward, lived in Fair Oaks, part of the greater Sacramento area. On one of our trips north, we followed an open house sign into Promontory Point, a “village” in Gold River. We liked the house. The price was right. It was not more than 2 miles from the Wards’, 20 minutes from Sacramento and the Dodsons’, and an hour and a half from Subei, Sharon, and Doug.
The house we’d been living in in Altadena had been built in 1935. That was the same year I’d been built and, like me, it was needing more and more maintenance. The Gold River house was much newer and had obviously been well-maintained. Modern appliances! A roof guaranteed for the next 30 years!
On the drive back to Southern California, Mike and I hashed and rehashed the pros and cons of such a move. How would it be to leave longtime friends? How would it be for Mike to leave music friends? How would it be for me to leave my longtime writing group? Well, it wasn’t as if we were moving to another country. When I asked Mike how he’d feel about leaving the Chorale, he said he was more than ready. He was tired of blending.
Before we signed on the dotted line for the house in Gold River, we talked with Cindi about the possibility that she and her kids might also make a move. We could help if she was willing. She was more than ready for a change and so jumped at the chance. Within two months of our move to Gold River, she, Ashley and Kerry had moved into a duplex just a few miles from our place. Still in close proximity to the first two grandkids, not close, but at least closer, to Subei.
In 2002, we’d gone to China with Sharon, Doug, and Subei, where they completed adoption arrangements for Lena, then 10 months old—another thrilling addition to the grandkid population.
On April 18, 2006, Mika Genevieve Reynolds, Matt and Leesa’s daughter, was born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Sometime around the 14th, when it appeared that Leesa was in the beginning stages of labor, we made the trip south. It turned out to be one of those start and stop labors that are so frustrating, especially to the mother. Maybe the baby, too. Mika has not yet revealed her version of the event.
By the morning of the 17th, it seemed that birth was imminent. Then it wasn’t. Then it was. Then it wasn’t. Finally, when monitors showed the baby was experiencing some distress, a quick decision was made for a cesarean.
As I write this, a series of images come to mind—Leesa and Matt walking the halls of Cedars-Sinai, hoping to move labor along. Leesa, uncomfortable and unwieldy, laughing as we approached, remarking about early signs of stubbornness in this baby. Matt walking beside her, growing more concerned with each slow-passing hour.
I see me with Mike, at lunch, an outdoor, street-side table, within view of the hospital, both cell phones at the ready. And then, shortly after lunch, there was a healthy baby Mika, an exhausted Leesa, and a greatly relieved Matt. We were thrilled with this new granddaughter. Mike didn’t think he could possibly love Mika any more than he loved the other grandchildren, but he allowed as how the “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” was an added bonus to his connection with Mika.
In 2006, even though things between us were fraying at the edges, Mike was still at his best with the grandkids.
In the realm of occasional times of love and lightness, season symphony tickets took us to San Francisco on a fairly regular basis. On symphony evenings we usually stayed overnight at Inn at the Opera, a small hotel, quaint and friendly, and an easy walk to Davies Symphony Hall and to favorite restaurants. The morning after the symphony we would make our way to Golden Gate Park. Often we would make use of our membership to visit the de Young Museum. At other times we wandered the gardens, stopping for tea in the Japanese Tea Garden. These were still invariably happy times for us. I worked to remind myself of the good times whenever Mike became distant and inconsiderate. Such work had become more demanding by the end of 2006.
Besides becoming less connected and more disgruntled, Mike had stopped doing any kind of exercise and had developed what might have been labeled a beer belly, except that he didn’t drink beer. I tried to convince him to get back on a workout routine, reminding him that he always felt better when he was exercising and physically active. He gave lip service to the idea, but regular exercise for him seemed to be a thing of the past. Had he become unable to maintain a schedule? To follow an exercise plan? Possibly. He was not yet having any obvious problems keeping appointments or maintaining a choir rehearsal schedule. But a new plan? Was that already beyond him?
I wish I’d not been so caught up in my own unmet needs that I was missing subtle signs of a disintegrating brain. I wish I had been able to talk with Mike without arousing his defenses. I wish I’d not so often responded to Mike out of a sense of being wronged.
December 2012
Dear Mike,
Yesterday I went with a friend to see “Quartet.” I thought so much of you, how you delighted in participating in the quartet that for so many years gathered to sing the high holidays, and in the occasional quartet formed by the soloists at Hollywood Presbyterian for a special program. I thought of you in the Master Chorale, in the concert version of “West Side Story,” and the funny schtick you did with “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” and on and on. I think you would have loved the music, and Maggie Smith, and so much more.
The soundtrack was beautiful. A major theme running through the movie had to do with a performance of “Rigoletto” that the principals had done in their younger years, so there was a lot of la donna è mobile. Also included was Libiamo Ne Lieti from La Traviata and many more that I couldn’t have named but that you could have.
Of course, it stirred up all kinds of dormant memories and emotions for me, hearing such wonderful music that I no longer hear without you to put on the CD or arrange for a trip to the symphony. I vowed to go through the still-packed box of your classical CDs and bring them in to sit beside Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash, and Dolly Parton, and others from the first box of music I unloaded.
The scenes that brought me to tears, though, were the comic scenes from “The Mikado” of “Tit Willow” and “The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring.” I remembered your San Gabriel High School production of “The Mikado.” Talk about blood, sweat, and tears. But you made it happen. What a great success for the stage crew, the orchestra, and, of course, for you and your singers! Those bits took me back to that long lost time. I do so wish you had been able to live out your life in a manner similar to that depicted in “Quartet.”
I go along day by day in my necessarily reinvented life, with you hovering at the edge of my consciousness. Then something, this time “The Mikado,” brings your vivid memory to life, where I must let you linger for a moment. And then I lose you all over again.
Goddamned FTD. I miss you terribly.
Marilyn