Poem for a Lucky cat

Lucky and Grandpa

My 15-year-old cat Lucky had to be put to sleep today. She was a fine old cat and a constant, if needy, friend. This is an ancient Irish poem written by a 9th century Irish monk about his cat. Lucky was just like Pangur Ban except Lucky was a "she" and not a "he", she was not Irish although she had the luck of the Irish, and she did not chase mice but had a preference for chipmunks. I am not a monk and I am too tired to sit all night hunting words. But I like the poem, especially the line "In our arts we find our bliss, I have mine, and he has his."

Pangur Ban

I and Pangur Ban, my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will;
He, too, plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our task how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
Into the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den.
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine, and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade ;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning Darkness into light.'

Lucy the dog and Lucky the cat: BFFs

Grandma Janet: April 18, 1913 - January 6, 2012

My mother Janet Eleanor Howard died January 6, 2012. Tomorrow is her 99th birthday. 

She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Jennie and J. Fred Peterson. She and my father Fred S. Howard lived in Garrett Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D. C., for 59 years until 2007, when they moved to Ann Arbor to be close to me and my family. My father Fred is now 101 years old and lives in an assisted living facility in Ann Arbor.

My mother worked as an elementary school librarian from 1957 to 1977 for the Montgomery County Public Schools. From the time Danny was born in 1976, she was a constant source of moral support. When my husband was out of town for meetings, my parents came to the rescue and helped me take care of Danny, and later Ian and Jennie. 

Anyone who has had a severely disabled child (or two) knows this is not the usual fun-filled romp that other grandparents experience with their more typical grandchildren. My parents made the difference between the maintenance of order and sanity in our household and a downward spiral into chaos and despair. Maybe I'm being melodramatic about this, but I think anyone who has lived in that world of worry, sleep deprivation, and never knowing whether tomorrow would bring another trip to the emergency room, can appreciate the relief of knowing you do not have to face it alone.

My mother was a world-class worrier, a trait that she passed on to me. I like to believe that we worriers are the early warning system for the human race, anticipating all that could go wrong and averting most disasters merely by having thought of them in advance. The disasters that did befall us were not nearly as bad as the ones we anticipated. Knowing that "it could have been worse" is a constant source of comfort to people like us.

In celebration of my mother's birthday, here is one of her favorite poems:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
by A.E. Housman from A Shropshire Lad, 1896

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,      
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,       
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Grandma Jane: February 20, 1916 - December 10, 2010

Baby Ian and Grandma Jane

Jane Alexander Barker - Grandma Jane to Danny, Ian, Jennie and 12 other grandchildren - died on December 10, 2010 in Monterey, California. I will remember her fondly for her sunny disposition, her energy and determination, and her love for her large family and their devotion to her.

Jane was born in New York City.  Her family moved frequently, spending time in Kansas City, MO, Miami Beach, FL, New Orleans, and then Orlando, FL.  She married Roger Barker, "Grandpappy" to all those grandchildren, in 1939. Her life was filled with both sorrow and joy. Her third child, Jimmy, drowned when he was 16 months old. Her brother Elliot and his wife died in a plane crash a few years later, leaving behind two boys who Jane and Roger adopted into their large family.

Even with six children, Jane was an inveterate volunteer. She was a girl scout leader for 16 years and president of the "pink ladies" at Orange memorial Hospital in Orlando. One of her proudest accomplishments was establishing a day care center for single mothers and low-income families at her church.

Jane had deep roots in Michigan. In 1926 her father purchased a cottage on Walloon Lake in Northern Michigan where she spent summers as a child and came back again and again until her last visit two summers ago. Her beloved Tanglewood cottage was where she felt most at home.

Jane had many enthusiasms including knitting, needlepoint, sewing, weaving and embroidering. She was an avid reader, often sharing murder mysteries, historical novels, and seamy potboilers with her eldest son (who is also my husband). She became a computer geek, amazing one of her granddaughters with her ability to set up a new computer system on her own and her insistence that she have a decent internet connection before she moved to California at the age of 90 to live with her daughter. She also wrote three self-published memoirs in the 1990's: a memoir of her own life, a history of her husband's family, and remembrances of Wildwood Harbor on Walloon Lake.

Jane Barker was a survivor. With her family, she survived the 1926 hurricane that swept over Miami beach by getting up on furniture as water flooded under the kitchen floor. She later survived a tornado which struck the Georgia town where she went to college. She survived over 40 years of smoking cigarettes and then gave them up cold-turkey. She leaves us with her stories about her mother and father, her grandmother, various aunts and uncles, her numerous friends and acquaintances, and all the lessons that can be learned from a long life, well lived.

Grandpa Fred is 100 years old

Before the New Year becomes the Old Year, I have to catch up on a few items.

My father Fred Howard - Danny, Ian, and Jennie's Grandpa - turned 100 years old on December 9th, 2010. He lives in Ann Arbor in an assisted living facility with my mother, who is only 97. Although he doesn't see or hear very well and can't get around without his walker, he is still holding doors open for women and children, making sure my mother gets her medications every day, and managing his life with as little interference as possible from the nosy people who keep coming by to check up on him.

I was lucky. My parents were always available in a crisis when Danny and Ian were younger. Mostly they kept me company when my husband would have to go out of town and I was stuck here alone with the kids. Come to think of it, those occasions were crises and if I hadn't had my parents' help, my sanity would have been in jeopardy. Even in recent years, when Ian was still living at home, although my father was not able to help much with actual care, he took over laundry duty, a task that kept him busy and feeling useful.

In his long life, he has always been busy and useful. He went to the University of Chicago on a full scholarship that he won in a city-wide writing contest in High School. He dropped out during his first year to become an actor until the depression hit and he had to come home and find a real job.  He worked in bookstores and eventually met and married my mother who had a young son, my half-brother John. In World War II he joined the Army Air Force and flew missions over North Africa and Italy as a bombardier. He bailed out of plane over Sicily and sent my mother the parachute handle for Christmas that year.

He worked at the Library of Congress for 15 years after the war where he was on the team editing the Wilbur and Orville Wright papers. He co-authored with my mother a collection of wartime letters and later published a novel. After the Library of Congress, he worked as an editor for many years for publishers in the Washington, D.C. area. At the age of 77, he published a biography of the Wright Brothers called "Wilbur and Orville", a book that was highly acclaimed and for which he later won a Christopher Award.

Now that my parents are very old, I am seeing first hand the differences in how we deal with disabilities in old-age and developmental disabilities that occur early in life. For one thing, we don't do as much pretending with people who are elderly: we don't expect them to work after they have reached the point in their lives where that is no longer possible or desirable and we don't berate them for choosing to live in "congregate" facilities if that is where they want to live and will get the best care. We also don't showcase the healthiest and most capable people who have attained a great age and pretend that that is proof that everyone can attain the same level of functioning into old age if only we have high expectations and adhere to an ideology that denies any other outcome of old age. Living well to an advanced age has as much to do with genes and luck as it does with attitudes, expectations, and circumstances over which we have no control.

Fred and Janet with grandson and family