 My November Serendipity Newsletter includes a hardcover book giveaway!
------ And here's the next blog segment of our story: The inauguration of President Barack Obama began the New Year. Beth and I flew to California for the first time, taking the BART train from the San Francisco airport and the Caltrain to Palo Alto and Stanford. We stayed in a hotel near the Caltrain station and walked to campus. Beth met with staff at the Diversity and Access Office and the law school. A large area under construction near Stanford Law would be the new graduate dorms where she would live. Much closer to classes than when she lived in Harvard’s Quad, with the added advantage of no snow and ice. We walked under the canopy of trees on Palm Drive. Beth reconnected with two Harvard swim team friends who worked for Facebook in downtown Palo Alto. At one of Stanford’s heated outdoor pools, I watched Beth while I returned work-related calls. She put her hair in a ponytail, stretched on a swim cap, and swam freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly laps. Each movement was the result of years of practice. After, she lifted herself out of the pool at the corner to sit on the deck. Shining in the sun, she looked up at me with clear blue eyes and an easy dimpled smile. I wished I could have glimpsed that singular moment after her spinal cord injury. Beth couldn’t move at all in intensive care almost 10 years earlier, a time when no one imagined her swimming laps in January under California's winter sun. She’d also come a long way from floating free in the rehab pool in Green Springs, Ohio. The next day, Beth’s right elbow swelled to the size of a baseball, an occasional recurrence aggravated by any kind of physical stress, extra wheeling or swimming or maybe getting bumped the wrong way. On our flight back to Boston, I suggested a power wheelchair to use only part of the time. Beth wouldn’t consider it. Next: Overseas travels, again!
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 John and I hosted cookouts for the five of us in our immediate family, plus a boyfriend or girlfriend. Sometimes, Scrabble games followed that Ben almost always won. We teased Beth about choosing a law school in California, as far across the country as she could get from us in Boston! Especially since she influenced most of our migrations from Ohio.
Beth reassured us, laughing, that she’d be back on the East Coast after graduating from Stanford. I cooked my first big turkey dinner after 50 years of traveling to Thanksgiving feasts in Ohio. My mom and grandma had cooked for crowds and timed everything perfectly, with the turkey carved and the potatoes mashed just minutes before we ate. I had roasted a turkey before but not with all the extra side dishes. My first attempt resulted in dry turkey and lumpy gravy. The pumpkin pies I made from my great-grandma’s recipe didn’t last long. In December, Beth’s boss asked her to attend Harvard's Health System Research Agenda Workshop with him in Cambridge. Late in the evening of the third, Beth sent me an email: OMG. Bill Gates was at my meeting. Then at dinner, I sat by a lovely French man who is the head of the World Economic Fund. He asked ME about my research and said I was helpful! So I’m having an existential night. I need to figure out what I want to do with my life because anything is possible. Love from your daughter, who has a big head tonight and danced alone on the T with her iPod. Next: November's Serendipity Newsletter!  In her new Malden apartment late one night, Beth transferred from the wheelchair to her bed, and a wheel lock didn’t hold. She tumbled to the floor. Her roommate Lizzy slept nearby in the next room.
Beth’s deep aversion to asking for help resulted in close to an hour’s struggle to get back into bed. And raw rug burns on her knees. She accomplished the feat only after creating a series of higher levels with pillows and anything else she could reach. If it had been me, I’d have asked for assistance right away. Beth considered the solo achievement a victory. John called it unnecessary stubbornness. I nagged her about taking care of the rug burns to avoid infection. Meanwhile, Maria taught her second school year as a lead teacher while Ben attended graduate school at Brandeis. I started a new nonprofit job in Wellesley, running programs for residents in need. John settled in at Waltham’s MacArthur School. John soon made many close friendships with the exceptional staff. Some weekends, I met Beth and Maria for lunch or clothes shopping. Maria dressed casually for work, like me, since she often sat on the floor with her preschoolers with a disability. Beth established her preferred style: dresses (or tops with skirts), and boots. The wheels of her chair ruined light colors despite side guards, so she avoided white clothing but not buttons and zippers. Mint Julep in Harvard Square remained Beth’s best source for dresses, though a few she bought weren’t appropriate for work. She saved those for dancing in Boston clubs. Wearing two small white pearls from China in each earlobe, she had blond highlights in her brown hair from the Judy Jetson salon in Cambridge. She replaced the Harvard Swimming backpack with a leather messenger bag that hung from the unused push handles of her wheelchair. We ordered a set of Spinergy wheels with black spokes instead of yellow, to look more professional. Meeting new people in and out of her office, she never hesitated to extend her contracted hand with the HOPE ring. Beth's job focused on international health systems and extensive research for a $7,000,000 grant proposal. After a workday in Harvard Square, Beth occasionally wheeled over the Charles River to swim laps at Blodgett pool and say hello to the coaches. Beth continued to love swimming, though she welcomed the break from swim training.  Did you miss my October Serendipity Newsletter that came out last week?
------ For the first time since the car accident, months stretched ahead with nothing but time for Beth and for me. Abruptly back in Massachusetts after Beijing, Beth planned to get a job with almost a year until law school. John and I lived far from public transportation, and with independence a top priority, she decided to rent her first apartment and assumed she would find a full-time job to pay for it. A leap of faith. Separate plans converged in serendipity. Calling from Tiffin, Beth’s high school friend Lizzy asked to stay with us while she looked for an apartment. She decided to relocate to the Boston area to find a teaching job. Beth and Lizzy made an easy decision to be roommates. The two recent college graduates applied for jobs in Cambridge. Beth and Lizzy looked at more affordable apartments farther away. I drove them to tour a nice complex in Malden. When Beth asked for my opinion, I pointed out the considerable distance from Malden to Cambridge. Nevertheless, they signed a year lease for an apartment near the Malden T stop before either of them had a job. Lizzy’s parents arrived from Ohio to help with the move. I set up a single mattress on a metal frame for Beth and a small computer table from IKEA. She borrowed a shelving unit and a lamp from John and me. Beth’s Stanford Law dorm would be fully furnished, so it didn’t make sense to buy more. Beth’s sparse bedroom contrasted with her overflowing clothes closet. Within a week of signing the lease, Beth accepted a full-time job in Harvard Square as a research assistant for the Harvard Dept. of Health Policy. Lizzy had a successful job interview with the Cambridge schools where she procured the job. Beth and Lizzy each had a 30-minute commute from Malden to Cambridge on the T red line subway. Twice a day. “Becoming independent,” Beth said. “That is my greatest achievement.” Next: New challenges of independence! |
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