Tag: love

the world she witnessed

If my grandmother were alive today, she would be celebrating her 100th birthday.

Born June 14, 1926, Evelyn Mae Fitzgerald Boozer entered the world before humans had flown into space, before the Civil Rights era, before computers, the Internet, and mobile phones, before commercial jet travel, before television was common in American households, before antibiotics were widely available.

She experienced the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the development (and use) of the atomic bomb, and the entire span of World War II before she turned 20.  

As a young adult, she became a mother just as the United Nations was formed, the Cold War began, America’s interstate highway system opened, and rock and roll took over the airways. In her 40s, she watched Martin Luther King, Jr. – a man who shared a middle name with her husband – lead a human awakening that stirred turmoil in her soul as a white Southern lady who also longed to live like Jesus.

She watched the Apollo 11 crew land on the moon and take that “one giant leap for mankind.” She wiped her brow and dabbed her neck as she watched coverage of the Vietnam War and nationwide protests flicker across her living room, now for the first time in color and even more real.

In her late 40s, on March 10, 1973, she watched her husband, David Luther Boozer, walk their daughter, Suzanne Elizabeth, down the aisle toward their new son-in-law, James (“Jim”) Cooper Frazier. At 52, she met her first grandchild and namesake, Evelyn Rose Frazier, and at 57, her second granddaughter, Sarah Katherine Frazier, named after her grandmother, Sarah, and her niece, Katherine.

She felt the unrelenting momentum pushing her to evolve her secretarial work from analog to digital and ultimately decided this was one change she wasn’t going to make. So she poured her talents into her church, where it was still perfectly acceptable to type the weekly bulletins and stack the offering coins into paper deposit rolls – red stripes for pennies, blue for nickels, green for dimes, and orange for quarters.

During her sixth decade, she lost her husband of nearly 50 years and made a new home in Jim and Suzanne’s basement apartment, specially renovated just for her. She hosted friends for card games, walked the carefully placed stepping stones beneath the shade of the backyard pine trees, and loved her two lapdogs in succession – first Sport, then Sparky – most often while sitting in her favorite spot, the swing on her screened-in porch, where she could hear the birds and watch the sunlight trickle through the leaves.

She took an RV road trip to Alaska with her sister, Alma, and brother-in-law, Hugh. She flew to Israel to walk the streets of Jerusalem, Switzerland to see the Alps, and Ireland to kiss the Blarney Stone.

As 24-hour cable news came on the scene and the sounds of dial-up Internet and AOL mail chirped upstairs, she was more comfortable with the pages of Readers’ Digest and reruns of Andy Griffith, Cheers, and M.A.S.H.

She watched with pride as her daughter returned to school to earn her professional certification as a Court Reporter, eventually rising to become president of the Alabama Court Reporters Association. She applauded her son-in-law who turned his unfortunate termination from corporate downsizing into an opportunity to own his own business. As America’s foreign and domestic policy further evolved in the wake of September 11, 2001, she doted on her granddaughters and watched them grow into young women, both meeting their future husbands while attending college, which was a first all its own. She watched her grandson-in-law, Daniel, sign up to serve his country as an Air Force JAG – the first military serviceperson in the family since her husband, David, who served in the Army Air Corps and then the Reserves.

She danced the night away at her youngest granddaughter’s wedding in 2003. Her oldest granddaughter made her a great-grandmother in 2006, when her great-grandson, James David, was born and given a double moniker steeped in meaning. In short succession, James David’s sisters arrived – Emma Katherine, followed by Anderson Elizabeth, and then Finley Evelyn.

She watched Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Katie Couric announce advances in cancer treatment, heart surgery, and organ transplants. She saw letters take a backseat to email. She saw landline telephones become novel and cell phones take charge. She gasped with awe during her first Skype video call, realizing she could speak to her granddaughter, Katherine, in real time, face to face, from five states away. “I never thought I’d live to see the day,” she marveled.

Two months after her 87th birthday, she left a world that had changed at a rate she never could have imagined.

She left us with her light and love.

Happy Birthday, Gran.

‘when breath becomes air’

I just finished reading Paul Kalanithi’s book, When Breath Becomes Air, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2016 and this month’s pick for my book club. The book is a memoir of the last seven years of Paul’s life when the grueling hours of a neurosurgical residency burn intensely on one end, a diagnosis of terminal cancer hungrily devours the other, and beautiful, brutal truths reveal themselves in the quickly diminishing space between. The closing chapter was authored by Paul’s wife, Lucy, as she describes Paul’s final days, burial and the legacy he is leaving behind through his research discoveries in neuroscience, the countless lives changed through his surgical expertise, and now through his story. The final page is a family portrait of Paul and Lucy and their eight-month-old daughter. 

When I closed the finished book, I cried alligator tears produced by actual sobs, thinking about the difficulty of his chosen profession, his triumph of reaching graduation, and his desire to bravely continue practicing as long as he could knowing that he was going to die before his daughter would be old enough to remember him. And the strength and presence of mind of his wife as they faced the weight of their reality together. What a read. I came in from the patio with swollen eyes and craving long squeezes from my guy. 

Later in the morning, Daniel and I went to the beach. He was laying on a blanket getting sun on his back, and I was sitting in one of the reclining chairs watching the gulls feed. I looked to my right and saw a man and a woman walking together. They looked to be in their eighties and had stopped to inspect some shells on the shore. They were holding hands – his left, her right – and in their opposite hands, each held a mask and snorkel signaling they had just wrapped up a morning swim. 

“I want to be those people,” I said to Daniel. He raised his head up. “Which ones?” he asked. “You know the ones,” I said, nodding in their direction. He smiled and rested his head back on his forearms. 

The couple resumed their walk, and as they passed by my chair, I had to speak to them. 

“I love your love!” I said. They smiled, and the man took a few steps my way with his arms stretched out to his sides. I thought he may give me a hug. “What was that?” he asked as he got closer and I remembered their age. I stood up from my chair and walked toward them at the surf. 

“I love your love,” I said a bit slower and louder, and drawing an imaginary heart around them for emphasis. “It’s so obvious that you love each other very much.” 

“Oh, thank you!” he said proudly, with a hint of an English accent, watered down from a lifetime in the states. 

“How long have you been together?” I asked. He looked lovingly at his wife and then said, “Well, we got married in 1958, so that should tell you something.” 

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” I said, watching him again take his wife’s hand. “Enjoy your walk.” They thanked me, smiled and continued on their way. Daniel raised his head up again and watched with me as they walked away. “I knew you were going to have to speak to them,” he said. “Yep,” I replied with tears welling in my eyes. 

Sixty-eight years together, and they are still active and enjoying each other’s company. “That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, truly,” I said, my voice breaking a bit. 

It really had been. Thinking about the gift of longevity and that couple’s many years together contrasted with the chasm of loss and what might have been in the book I had just finished reading.

“Think about it…,” I said. “If we are together that long, then it’s a blessing to think we’re not yet even a third of the way through our marriage!” 

“Oh Lord,” Daniel said sarcastically, his voice muffled on his arms. 

I got out of my chair and sat on his bum, stretching out my back along his. 

“Tailbone to tailbone,” I said, rocking side to side and giggling at his groans. 

As I leaned my head back against his and closed my eyes, I gave thanks for silliness after 20 years of marriage and the gift that couple had given me – the hope that this really could be just the beginning.