June 6th & 7th

by David Goldman

Tomorrow is a big day for me. June 7, 1997 was the date of my successful pancreas transplant.

June 6, 1997 was the last full day I spent as a diabetic.

June 6, 1997 was the day Krissy Frank didn’t see the truck coming.

Krissy was a 17 year old high school student from a Minneapolis suburb. She had everything in the world to look forward to and there was no reason to think she wouldn’t attain it all. Everyone I’ve met who knew her told me the same things: she was smart, she had a great personality, and she would light up the room as soon as she walked in. She was a member of the National Honor Society at her school. Classes had just ended for the year. Just one more year of high school and she was on to college. Maybe medical school would follow after that.

She played softball for the high school girls’ team. On the afternoon of Friday June 6^th, 1997 she was attending a school sponsored party for the team. Krissy had her driver’s license since the previous October and she was only a couple of miles from her house.

On Friday June 6^th, 1997 I had been a diabetic for 41 years. It was a long time to be taking shots, dealing with partial blindness, kidney disease, and more. During the last few years that I had diabetes I had reached a point where my blood sugars were on a daily roller coaster ride. They went literally from too low to read, to too high to read before diving back down low again. I had absolutely no control of my sugar levels anymore. To make matters worse, my body no longer recognized the telltale signs of an insulin reaction that occur when the blood sugar is too low. I had gone through kidney disease and a successful kidney transplant. But the diabetes was getting to me. I always thought I felt normal but that was changing too. I felt like I was wearing down much faster than I should have been for my age. The diabetes was taking a toll on me.

I had gone on the transplant waiting list for a pancreas the past November. They said it would probably be three to six months before a good donor match came up. The thing is, I never truly considered that my donor would be a living, breathing person who had a family and a place in the world. I know that sounds incredibly stupid and naïve, but I guess it’s just how I rationalized things. In order for me to receive my pancreas, somebody had to die. The furthest I let myself go was to think, no, to assume it would be someone without a family and without a life. Maybe someone drowning his or her sorrows in a bar who got into a car and accidentally ended a life that nobody had noticed in the first place. You could call it a warped version of wishful thinking.

Krissy got in the car and offered to take one of the other girls home. She was the sort of person who was always willing to help someone out, and offering a ride was in her nature. They got in, buckled their seatbelts, and were on their way home.

In order to get from the softball field to their homes they had to cross a highway. It was a north-south highway with two lanes in each direction separated by a median strip. Krissy stopped as she approached the highway and checked traffic coming from the north. When it was clear, she moved across two lanes and stopped in the median before crossing the northbound lanes. Witnesses said they saw her look and check the oncoming traffic as she crossed the last two lanes.

The small truck headed north at 55 m.p.h. was in her blind spot.

Our phone rang at 5:30 am Saturday morning. The caller ID said it was the Transplant Center at the University of Minnesota. It was “The Call”. For the past seven months every time the phone rang I thought it might be them. Anyone who’s ever been on the transplant list knows what it’s like. Anytime the phone rings it could be “The Call” that’s going to save your life. Some people wait for years. Far too many never get “The Call”.

The voice said they had a donor for me. “… a very good match. She was a 17 year old girl who was killed in a car crash”. Suddenly, everything changed. I didn’t want it to be a 17 year old girl. I didn’t want a 17 year old to die so that I could live. It wasn’t fair. “David? Can you make it up here?” It was supposed to be someone without a life, without a family or friends. Shouldn’t it be somebody who wouldn’t mind dying and wouldn’t be missed?

“Uh … yes, how soon do I have to get up there?”

“As soon as you can make it.”

“Okay.”

Friday night the Franks also received a phone call from a hospital. Their daughter had been in an accident. A bad accident. They needed to get to the hospital as soon as they could. The ambulance had taken Krissy to the nearest hospital. Her injuries were severe and she had to be transferred to a trauma center. Her passenger, the girl Krissy doing was a favor for, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.

When Krissy's parents arrived at the hospital they thought she looked like she was sleeping. However, the news wasn’t good. She had suffered significant brain damage. They were waiting for test results. Her mother sat and held Krissy’s hand for hours. She would squeeze Krissy’s hand and at times it seemed Krissy squeezed back. Her mother held out hope. Finally, the doctor came in with the news no parent should ever have to hear. “I’m so sorry. We’ve done everything that we can but your daughter has suffered irreversible brain damage. She is brain dead. There is nothing left that we can do.”

They heard the words but couldn’t comprehend them. Somebody made a mistake. Can time just be rewound so this doesn’t happen? This isn’t supposed to go like this. She has to finish high school and then she’s going to college. She’s going to wake up soon. You’ll see! She’ll be fine. Maybe a little bruised but that’s all …

My wife and I walked into the hospital Saturday morning and went to admissions. On our way to the room we stopped at the gift shop to pick up a newspaper. We were told it would probably be a few hours before my surgery. I went to my room and sat there as doctors and nurses came in taking blood, asking questions, prodding and poking. Then came more tests and more prodding. Finally, my wife and I were left alone in the room. The entire time I had been thinking that someone died and because of it I was going to live. I felt guilty. Logically, I knew I shouldn’t. Emotionally, it was a different story. My wife opened the paper she purchased in the gift shop and said, “Oh no …”. On the front page was the story of a car accident from the night before in which two high school girls were killed. I couldn’t look at it. I didn’t want to hear what it said. When I was released from the hospital a few days later, we brought the paper home with us.

A representative from Minnesota’s organ procurement agency came into the room where the Franks were trying to grasp what had happened. The woman came in to ask them if they would consider donating Krissy’s organs so that the loss of their daughter might save others’ lives. “Many people’s lives can be saved and others enhanced.” We all know that if and when we are asked, the correct response to the question is yes. Life must go on right? But it has to be one of the hardest decisions anyone can be asked to make. How can you even think straight at such a traumatic time? Too many people say no and as a result, more people die.

But the Franks knew what they had to do. They knew what Krissy would have wanted. They said yes.

I came out of surgery at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, June 7, 1997. After 41 years I was no longer a diabetic.

Monday morning Krissy Frank was buried. Prior to the funeral a representative asked me if there was anything I wanted to say to the family. All I could say was I’m sorry and thank you. Then I broke down and cried my eyes out.

A year after I got home I was finally able to read the newspaper article about the accident. I’ll always wish it was not those two young girls.

I’m told a lot of transplant recipients feel guilty over the new life they have received. I don’t know if it’s guilt I feel, but sometimes it is hard to accept the fact that I benefited from Krissy Frank’s death. I don’t think a day has passed since June 6, 1997 that I haven’t thought of Krissy. I imagine I will think of her for the rest of my life.

The Ride of My Life - part 3

by David Goldman

Chris and me posing

We ate a special congratulatory lunch that was prepared to welcome us after our successful ascent of the mountain. It was not lost on us that everyone else partaking in it had successfully sat in the seat of a motorized vehicle that hauled them to the top rather than pedaling their bikes up there. No matter though, we had made it on our own and we were quite proud. We ate and prepared for our descent. We could see a portion of the road going down the other side. There were several steep switchbacks but then the road headed out of our range of vision.

Fed and rested, we mounted our bikes and headed down. I started pedaling and soon had to shift to a higher gear as my feet couldn’t keep up with the tension in the crank. My gears steadily rose until I was in my highest gear. This was certainly a switch. After having spent hours in my lowest gear I was now in my highest gear and that wasn’t even high enough. I glanced at my speedometer: 25 mph, 32 mph, 39 mph, 40 mph. I was going much faster than I had ever gone on a bike before. The speed kept increasing and it was exhilarating. I knew that every bike has a point where the speed causes a vibration through the bike. It’s a scary moment but it passes and the bike stops shaking. I hit that point at 44 mph. By 45, it was rolling smoothly again. I got up to 48 miles per hour and it felt like I was going 148. I was flying. I was cutting through the wind like a knife blade. When I hit 48 mph I decided I’d better slow it up a bit. There was more traffic and I wasn’t experienced at handling a bike at this speed. There was still a lot of riding left this day, and this week and I didn’t want to take a chance on wiping out and ending my trip early. So I slowed down to a reasonable 35 mph and enjoyed the easy cruise down.

When we got to the bottom it sank in. We had only just completed the beginning of the day’s ride. We still had over 60 miles to ride through the White Mountains. By now our legs were spent. On the few flat areas we encountered we were okay. But as soon as the road began to tilt up our legs burned like they were on fire. We pushed on and barely spoke because it took too much effort and there was nothing left to say. Again, I tried to appreciate the beautiful countryside we were riding through but it was just impossible. All I could think of was turning the pedals over. One after the other after the other…

A couple of hours later we reached a designated rest area for our group. At this point we were going to be riding on a highway. The road looked like an interstate – two lanes in each direction divided by a narrow strip of uncultivated land. The speed limit for cars and truck was 65 mph and bikes were to ride on the shoulder. Okay, I thought, this sounds a little scary but if that’s how it’s done out here, that’s fine with me. Then came the warning: be very, very careful of logging trucks. They WILL try to run you off the road. I was used to rude drivers; drivers who would blast their horns at cyclists because in their minds the road is only for cars. But this was different. We were being warned that we were going to be riding on a very dangerous road and drivers with very large trucks carrying large loads were going to try and run us off the road. Great, this is my idea of a vacation. 

We were given one more warning. There was another very big climb coming.

Needless to say, we were not happy campers. We still had over half of our day’s ride in front of us, we had crazed truck drivers trying to kill us, and we had another big climb ahead.

So we headed out once again, this time riding the shoulder of a highway. Sure enough, within a few miles we heard a different vehicle sound coming from behind. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a logging truck with a full load of trees headed toward us. The trucks are so heavy that you can feel the road vibrating as they get closer. The driver laid on his air horn. The horn got louder and louder and the rumble became stronger and more jarring as he approached. I was riding a good six feet into the shoulder. The truck was halfway onto the shoulder and still moving over. The trucker pushed me to within inches of falling off the shoulder when he passed. I ducked because as I saw him coming from behind I could see large branches sticking out of the truck at all kinds of odd angles. One truck down, how many more to go?

It went on like that for a long time. Each logging truck would follow the same routine. Blow their air horns to get you scared and come up on you and try to squeeze you off the road. There were a couple of times when we came within inches of going off. Once you did go off you were going down hard into rocks, jagged cement, or dirt and chances were if you went down you wouldn’t be riding again for quite a while.

We were lucky though. We made it through the hazard zone and were climbing yet again. This climb was different. It was a lower gradient so we could continue for longer periods before we’d have to stop. But it went on and on and on. We were both in miserable moods. This was way past being annoying. It was sheer misery. Who planned this route? What were they thinking? There’s a difference between a hard ride and a torturous ride. It was late afternoon by now and there was no end in sight. I had already suffered a couple of insulin reactions that day. All the hard work burned up the sugar in my body quickly. I had taken almost no insulin that morning and had ingested LOTS of sugar and carbs but the sugar burned off so fast from the riding that my blood sugar kept going too low. When it did I’d have to pull over, eat a couple of candy bars, and check my sugar until it got high enough to continue.

The day felt like it would never end. We rode on and on and on and climbed up and up and up. My body was numb. We approached the final rest stop and I got off my bike and checked my sugar. Once again, it was too low to read. I ate even more candy and drank even more Gatorade. Once my thinking started to clear I could tell how spent my body was. It was time to throw in the towel for the day. I didn’t see how I’d make it to the end of that day’s ride. We knew a lot of others had already given up and taken the ride to that night’s destination. They were probably showered, relaxed, and enjoying a beer. Yeah, I’m done for today.

Then something happened that had never happened before or has happened since. I became enraged. I had anger in me like I never experienced before. I wasn’t mad at the route or the guy that planned it, not the logging truck drivers or the mountains. I was incensed about being a diabetic and being beaten. I had been living with diabetes for almost 40 years. It had taken the vision in one eye and left me with only partial vision in the other. My kidneys had quit working, my heart was showing some of the effects, and my hands and feet were beginning to suffer from diabetic neuropathy. My dad died from diabetes. When he died he was blind and had become an old man way before he should have. In the process it robbed him of his dignity. On his last birthday I mentioned something about the next one and he said he wouldn’t be here for that one.

I was livid. There was a fury and a rage in me that I had never felt. I was not going to be beaten.

I stood up and told Chris I had to go. He looked at me like I was nuts. Honestly, I didn’t feel like myself at that point. He asked what I meant but I couldn’t even answer. I didn’t know what to say. How could I explain that this day had become a personal challenge? Who was going to win this one, me or diabetes? I got on my bike, placed my hands in the drops and started riding.

My body was functioning at a level that was foreign to me. My legs felt like pistons that would never stop. My heart beat at a steady pace and my lungs took in air through my nose and let it out calmly through my mouth. I felt perfect. I heard Chris behind me yelling to wait up but I couldn’t. I was going to finish this ride and I was going to finish strong. 

Chris caught up to me at a red light. He said I looked funny and asked what was going on. I told him I couldn’t explain it. I said something had come over me and I just had to ride. 

Chris and me somewhere in New England

About an hour later we were done. I had completed the most grueling day of riding I ever had attempted. That day I beat The Kanc, I beat the loggers, and I honestly felt for that one day, I had beaten diabetes.

I rode a lot after that day but I was never able to summon the strength to ride the way I did at the end of that ride. It was an hour where emotion controlled my mind and my body. If I had to have ridden another 100 miles that day I have no doubt that I would have done it. Not because I was such a good rider, but because I was fighting my own personal war.

We had other challenges during that week. There was a hundred mile ride through rain that varied from a light drizzle to downpour, more climbs that seemed to just go straight up, and finally, a 90 mile ride for the last day in 104° heat. 576 miles in all, and we pedaled every single inch.

At one point while we were struggling up a steep mountain pass Chris said to me, “you know, they say the body forgets pain.” He was right. The next year we signed up and did the ride again.

Don't Ask!

By Roberta Durra

There is no stopping these people. They are brutal and relentless. I dread the encounter. Yet, every day without fail…it happens. I eye the clock knowing full well that the later it gets, the sooner it will occur. I avoid making eye contact. I immerse myself in projects of which I have no interest. I call friends I haven’t spoken to in years, just hoping to avoid the inevitable. But avoidance is futile. No matter what I am doing or where I might be, somehow they manage to seek me out. Whether huddled in my studio, or miles away hiding out in a remote bookstore, come 5:30 p.m. they are magnetically drawn to me. Exhibiting not an ounce of shame, they track me down daily, blatantly accosting me with the abhorrent…“WHAT’S FOR DINNER?”

Geez!! What’s for dinner??? Honestly, I have NO idea. What do YOU think we’re having? Or better yet, what have YOU shopped for and prepared? Do I sound bitter? I’m really not. I’m just tired.

Truthfully, “What’s for dinner?” is a fine question. And if I had pots of aromatic curries and rice simmering away at 5:30 p.m., I would answer with a “Mother Knows Best” smile, a flip of my hair and a quick curtsy. But most often, at the time when I should be making dinner, I haven’t yet shopped for food, or even figured out what we’re having. The problem is that I find the whole dinner routine annoying. I don’t care how much someone likes to cook, and I am a someone who does, but seriously… EVERYDAY? Come on, people. It’s a pain. I try to be creative with it. I make fancy meals to please my eaters; I’ve gone the other way with simple dishes and silly monikers; “Taco Tuesday”, “Meatloaf Monday”, “Weiner schnitzel Wednesday”. None of this helps. The routine is a killer, and I’m no fan of routine. As a matter of fact, I make up different ways to brush my teeth each morning.

And then there’s a daily scene that adds insult to my culinary injury. I can be making filet mignon with béarnaise sauce; lobster tails with garlic butter, double baked mashed potatoes and grilled corn-on-the-cob. Inevitably, the teenager I live with walks through the kitchen, takes a quick peek and says, “Is this what we’re having?” It’s a loaded question and one that no matter how he says it, I hear…”Is THIS what we’re having?” How does a person answer this question without being arrested for teen-slaughter? He swears he has no “attitude”. He’s just asking. Ok then, Mr. Teen, this begs a question in return, and I will ask it with the same “non attitude” that you employ… “For what other use than OUR DINNER do you suppose I am making this food?”

I don’t mean to harp on “Is this what we’re having”, yet it bothers me enough that I have broken it down to better understand the question. I realize now that individually the words do not offend. I have no problem with “is”. “This” and “what” are both fine. “We’re having” I can live with. But put them together and have them come from the mouth of a lad who sings the praises of Taco Bell’s, Gordita Nacho Cheese Supreme, and it’s like having a convention of teenagers simultaneously scratch their nails down a chalkboard.

People in Spain have the dinner dilemma all figured out. They eat their main meal at lunchtime and later in the evening slap down a loaf of bread with wine and cheese, add some olives and call it supper. And after lunch people take a siesta! I would love a nap after dinner at lunchtime.

I’m sure that if I could serve my family dinner at noon, all my problems would be solved. At midday, I’m always in a patient and loving mood. In fact I’m a 12-1:30 p.m. kind of person! I like to cook when I’m fresh and I know for a fact, that if at noon a certain someone would ask me (without any attitude, of course), “Is this what we’re having?” I would laugh and say, “Si Senior! Usted debe ser un hombre muy sabio para hacer una pregunta tan sabia. Elogio a su madre”  (“Yes Sir! You must be a very wise man to ask such a wise question. I commend your mama”). 

The Ride of My Life - part 2

by David Goldman

We were panicked. The Kanc was two days away and we were going to be riding a never-ending climb with bikes geared to ride over flat land. We lived in Illinois and bikes purchased there came with gears meant for little or no climbing. Here’s a bike lesson 101: Low gears allow easier pedaling but give you less distance per pedal stroke. High gears mean greater tension but also greater distance per pedal revolution. Illinois has the terrain of a sheet of paper so our bikes came without the low gears we would need in two days. There was always the option of riding up the mountain in the SAG (support & gear) car, but we didn’t fly all the way out here with our bikes to take a car ride up the hard parts. We wanted to experience the whole thing. We asked the mechanic what we could do. He said the next day’s ride ended in North Conway, NH. and there was probably a bike shop in town. Maybe they’d have the proper gear sets. We had hope. All we had to do was make it to North Conway.

The next day we started out bright and early once again. It was a beautiful ride that day. North Conway is located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Each road is more scenic than the last. Too bad we didn’t see any of it. It seemed like the entire day was spent riding uphill. We couldn’t look at the scenery because we were looking at the road either below us or in front of us and willing ourselves on. We’d switch from sitting on the saddle and pedaling, to standing and pedaling. We’d try to avoid looking at our speedometers which would say we were moving at 2.8 miles per hour, drop down to 1.6 mph, and then rocket up to 4.0 mph. We were constantly riding in our lowest gear and it was nowhere near low enough. I tried to tell myself to look around at how beautiful everything was, but it was pointless. All I could concentrate on was pedaling up the road one pedal stroke at a time.

That day we learned the meaning of a false flat – a road that appears flat but is in fact sloping ever upward. Then there was the woman who, each time we got to the base of a climb would shout out, “lift!” to let us all know we would be climbing again. Chris and I argued over who would have the honor of killing her that night. 

Finally we arrived in North Conway. We were staying in a hotel that night and as soon as we got to the room, I got out the phone book and found the bike shop. I called and told them what we needed based on the specifications the mechanic gave us. Luck was on our side. They had two in stock. The bike shop was a few miles into town and I told Chris I’d ride there, get them, and bring them back. Then we gave our bikes and our new low gear sets to the mechanic so he’d have us ready for the next morning, a day that would begin with The Kanc.

I was never a breakfast person and I don’t usually eat until lunch. I learned quickly though on this trip that I had to eat breakfast. You really do equate food with fuel on a ride like this. No food means no fuel and a miserable ride. Chris and I decided we wanted to get an early start that day. On this tour all the riders had their own set of directions and were encouraged to do each day’s ride at their own pace. By now everyone on the ride referred to us as the Flatlanders. It was our name. Being the Flatlanders, we decided to get an extra early start on the day. We got up, ate and left the hotel. We saw the other people in our group just coming down to eat when we left. 

It was an easy ride to the start of The Kanc, about five miles of mostly forested road. We arrived at the covered bridge which signified the beginning of The Kanc.

We rode through the covered bridge and looked down at the Swift River below us. When we emerged, we started our ascent. At first it seemed reasonable. After all, we now had the proper gear sets so we should have a good chance of making it.

Within about three miles we were both in our lowest gear and struggling. Even though we had ridden about 10 miles, it really wasn’t much of a warm up. Plus, it was still very early and quite chilly. Chris said he brought a tube of Ben-Gay. He thought we could put it on our legs to warm them up. I was willing to try anything, so we pulled over and rubbed Ben-Gay into our already weary legs. We got back on our saddles and started riding again. “I really think this is helping,” I told Chris. Within half a mile we decided we needed more Ben Gay.

We went on like that until the tube was empty. Then, we were on our own with no chemical aids and no convenient excuses to get off our bikes.

In the past three days of riding up various hill and mountain roads we always knew that the climb would break or even go slightly downhill to give us a momentary reprieve. So you could set a goal – there was almost always an end or at least a momentary end in sight. Just make it up to the top of this climb and you can coast or pedal easily for a while. It doesn’t work that way with The Kanc. Once you start going up there are no respites in sight. All you can see is the road ahead of you angling ever upward. It goes up and up and up until it reaches a bend. You go around that bend and you see more of the same. Steady climbing. No flats, no downhills. Just up. It tires you both physically and mentally. You look at your odometer and are shocked to see that all that pedaling netted you four tenths of a mile. You try not to remind yourself that this climb is 34.5 miles longs. The more you try to stifle that thought, the more prevalent it becomes.

We struggled on. We’d encourage each other with, “you’re doing good” in order to fool ourselves into thinking we were. We started setting goals for ourselves. “Okay, see that sign way up there? Let’s make it to there and we’ll stop for a break.” We continued like that and we kept making the landmarks closer and closer. It finally got to the point where we’d go from telephone pole to telephone pole and have to take a break. “Who thought this would be fun?” we asked ourselves. “It’s supposed to be a vacation. This is the hardest I’ve worked at anything in years!” We talked, coaxed, and insulted ourselves slowly up the mountain. There were times when our bikes were moving at 1 mile per hour. A brisk walk is about 3 miles an hour. We considered walking our bikes up. We thought it would be faster. But we decided against it. We came here to ride and we were determined to ride all the way up The Kanc.

After countless hours, we came around a bend and we saw it. The scenic overlook at the top, which signaled we had finally made it, and not a moment too soon.

We pulled into the picnic area there and saw quite a few people from our group. “About time you made it!” was what we were greeted with. Yeah, about time we made it. But here’s the thing, not one of these people passed us on our way up. We were positive of this because we talked about it often. In fact, nobody passed us. All these other New Englanders who had dubbed us Flatlanders had taken a ride up in the SAG car.!! And we’re supposed to be the Flatlanders? This gave the two of us a lot of confidence. We were definitely the most inexperienced climbers in this tour and if we could make it up The Kanc, we could handle anything.

My blood sugars had been crazy that day -- constantly up and down. But I had made it up this damned mountain. 

Too bad we didn’t know the worst was yet to come.

End part two

My Sister's Glasses

By Roberta Durra

A few days ago I threw out a pair of silver framed reading glasses. They were smudged and bent out of shape and too strong for my eyes. They weren’t my glasses anyway. They belonged to my sister, Lois, who died of breast cancer 3 years ago. I have struggled with having these glasses. And now I know that I don’t need them any longer.

Lois was fourteen years older than me. I idolized my sister when I was growing up. I don’t have many memories of actually living with her because she went away to college when I was only 4. But I remember knowing that she was the best big sister. Why? Because she was kind, beautiful, wore cool white bobbysocks and she shared her hairdryer with the big cap.

When I was 7 years old, I was a flower girl at Lois and Stan’s wedding. My nose was red in all of the photos because I cried throughout the wedding. The kind of sobbing that comes from deep in your chest, makes you hiccup, unable to talk, and embarrassed because lots of people are watching. After the ceremony my brand new brother-in-law, Stan, bent down on his knee and tried to console me.

            “Bobbi”, he said. “You are not losing your sister. You are gaining ME as a brother”.

That’s when I really became hysterical. I didn’t want a new brother. I wanted my sister back!

When I was 9, my sister became pregnant with her first child.  Again, I cried.  I worried that Lois wouldn’t love me as much once her baby was born. She sat with me on my bed, in my pink childhood bedroom and promised that her love for me would not change once her baby was born. She told me that she had enough love for both of us. Lois was a woman of her word. She remained my wonderful big sister, making lots of time for me throughout my childhood, always making me feel important. She taught me how to bake bread, let me babysit, and continued to stay involved in my life through my less than pleasant teen years, my self-induced young adult dramas, my various careers, the joyful birth of my child and every other life scenario as it played out.

Lois raised her family in the suburbs of Chicago and stayed in Illinois throughout her life. On the other hand, at twenty-five, I moved to New York and later to California. From that point on, our relationship was one of long distance phone calls and visits that were always too short. We led very different lives, and on paper had little in common.  And yet, we chose to be each other’s unwavering supporter and closest friend.

Although Lois had been living with breast cancer for a year, she became extremely ill very suddenly and died within a two-week period. Her children and I were at my sister’s bedside when she passed. This was the greatest honor my sister could have given me. The weeks spent with her in hospice were filled with love, grief, humor, disbelief and some unsettling scenes pertaining to the end of life that sometimes still haunt me late at night. My sister lived her life in a very full way. She died with tan lines on her feet from the sandals she’d worn during a recent trip to Argentina.

I spoke at my sister’s funeral and stayed in Chicago for a few days. Then I went back to my own life in Los Angeles. When my sister’s belongings were divvied up amongst her children and other family members, I was not there. I ended up being given things that I had once given Lois… a beautiful glass pitcher she had displayed in her living room, a large shell she gave me from her honeymoon (and then took back 20 years later), a scrapbook I made of a recent trip we had taken together and a small clay bowl with the letters L O I S on the front. I made that clay bowl for Lois when I was a kid at camp. I remember working hard shaping the letters. The glaze was a beautiful pearl blue, and I was very proud to give it to her. She kept it all these years. Most recently it was on her kitchen counter filled with paperclips, pens, and a pair of silver reading glasses. When I first received the bowl back, that’s exactly what was in it. It felt like sacred offerings, and I put it in full view on my dresser where I could see it every morning. It stayed there for most of a year.

Then there was a time when some of the scenes from her last days began haunting me again, and I had trouble looking at the bowl. I moved it behind my tall jewelry stand for about 6 months.

This year, I put the bowl back in its rightful place on my dresser, and threw out the paperclips, rubber bands and other miscellaneous items. That’s when I began carrying Lois’s silver framed reading glasses with me. They were just cheap, drugstore glasses. They hurt my eyes. When I tried wearing them they gave me a headache. But they were hers, so I carried them in my purse.

I miss my sister. I still want to call her when something wonderful happens, and want to talk to her when times are rough. I haven’t had many dreams about her, and I feel somewhat disappointed. Her husband died 2 years before she did, and she told me that she often witnessed signs of his presence. A necklace that was very meaningful to both of them once mysteriously appeared in the corner of her living room. She had no recollection of how it might have gotten there. She was certain it was Stan. One time, when I was completely immersed in washing dishes, I had a very strong sense of my sister. It came in a clear wave of emotion, really out of nowhere. It felt loving and pure. I think she breezed in for a quick hello.

I see Lois in my aging body. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection and I look like her. Sometimes I can see my sister’s hands when I look at my own. I hear her voice in mine when I answer the phone. I never saw these things when she was alive because she held the space that was “Lois”. Now with her gone, I find her energy elsewhere. I look for her likeness in her children, grandchildren, and in myself. Sometimes it catches me off-guard and I feel shaken. Sometimes it feels like a warm hug. But as for the glasses, still smudged by Lois’s wear and tear, they don’t feel like a part of my sister any more. They feel like bent reading glasses that take up too much room in my purse and give me a headache when I wear them.

Where Lois lives is within me.  

The Ride of My Life - part 1

by David Goldman

“You guys must be the flatlanders.”

Those words were the preface to what turned out to be one of the most difficult and one of the most rewarding days of my diabetic life.

My friend Chris and I looked at each other and silently agreed. We were somewhere in New Hampshire after completing the second day of a one week, nearly 600 mile cycling trip through New England. We had become known as the flatlanders.

It had been my idea to go on this journey. I had started doing what I guess you would call, serious bike riding the year before when I won a cheap bike at our work picnic and, started riding it. The year was 1992 and the cycling really brought me back to my youth when our bikes were our primary means of transportation as well as a source of entertainment. That bike fell apart within a few weeks of riding and I went to the local bike shop and bought a good mountain bike.

There are lots of trails through the woods near my home, so that was primarily where I rode. And, as the bike mechanic had said, it was flat land. Illinois is flat, flat, and more flat. But I did a lot of riding that summer and continued it late into the winter until it got too cold. Riding in a Chicago winter with toes that turn numb within 20 minutes is just not practical. As soon as the weather broke 30° the following spring I was back on my bike and riding again. By then, my friend Chris had started riding with me.

We rode a lot that year. I’d ride before work and we’d do a long ride every Sunday morning. We knew we weren’t very good riders but we were improving. We eventually entered a century or 100-mile ride. Chris rode on his road bike, but I was still riding my mountain bike. Let me tell you, riding 100 road miles on a mountain bike is not a day in the park. The bike is heavier, the tires wider, and the positioning is different, all of which makes distance riding on a mountain bike more difficult than on a road bike. But we grew steadily stronger, and our riding skills improved.

 In January of ‘94 I was reading a cycling magazine, and an ad caught my eye. It was small, but I noticed it because of what it said: Cycle New England for the ADA. The ADA is the American Diabetes Foundation. I called and they said it was a one-week ride starting in Massachusetts and going through New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and ending up back in Massachusetts just outside of Boston. The total mileage varied from year to year, but it was always between 500-600 miles. It was a fundraiser for the ADA of New England and each rider was required to raise a certain amount for the charity. As soon as I hung up I knew I wanted to do it, especially since I was a diabetic. The problem was, I didn’t have a road bike and I wasn’t going to attempt that kind of ride on a mountain bike.

A good road bike isn’t cheap, so I had to agree to several cutbacks in my life in order to persuade my wife to let me buy the bike. The one I really remember was giving up my grande, extra-shot latte every morning. That was a tough one! But with her blessing on both buying a new bike and the trip, I headed back to the bike shop and purchased my road bike.

In the meantime, I had mentioned the trip to Chris. He was immediately interested because he loved riding and his younger sister was a diabetic. He already had a road bike and almost immediately said he wanted to do it . So, we were set. We signed up and began training because we were told there was a lot of climbing almost every day of the ride.

I started riding longer distances every morning before work. I’d ride anywhere from 25 – 60 miles every morning and 60-100 every Sunday. My only day off was Monday. I could feel myself getting in better shape for the ride. At this point I was eight years post kidney transplant but I still had the diabetes to contend with. If anything though, the riding helped. It kept my blood sugars lower, although I was still almost always on a roller coaster ride of high and low sugars. But I felt good. Even after the 100-mile rides I felt relatively strong. Come July, I was going to be ready.

Chris and I flew out to Boston separately as he had friends there he was going to visit before the ride. The ride was starting from a motel parking lot in a Boston suburb on a Saturday morning. I arrived Friday and spent Friday night reassembling my bike in the hotel room. Saturday morning I woke and was rarin’ to go. Chris showed up Saturday morning with his head almost completely shaved – a much different look for him. I think he thought he’d be more aerodynamic. As I was staring at him he said the barber told him, “You have a head like a doorknob.” We never figured out what that meant, or if it was good or bad.

The first day was an “easy” ride. It was going to be about 90 miles of “gentle” terrain. We thought we were riding through the Alps. It didn’t take long to realize that no matter how much you ride on flat roads, it cannot prepare you for hills and mountains. It was a beautiful ride. We went through rural Massachusetts, through Walden Pond, and into a small college town. We arrived at the dorm where we would be spending the night, showered, and went to dinner in the town. Our dinner for the whole group (about 30 people) was being hosted at a local restaurant. We all went in ravenous and literally ate everything they had. We left when the restaurant was out of food. We went back to the dorm, and even though it was about 90° in the room, we slept like rocks.

The next morning we woke up early, ready for another day of cycling. We were both sore in places we had never been sore before. Riding your bike up hills uses muscles that we didn’t know we had and certainly had never used before. Plus, there was more climbing this day.

Lots of it.

Everyone else on the tour was from New England, and they were used to cycling these roads. We started hearing a lot of, “Wait till you get to The Kanc” and, “This is nothing compared to The Kanc.” The Kanc is short for The Kancamagus Highway, a scenic mountain road in New Hampshire. As we rode that second day we learned more and more about it. It’s approximately 34.5 miles of steady climbing with the gradient varying between 3°-7.5°. These angles don’t seem very daunting, but when you’re trying to ride a bike up them, they’re monumental.

We finished the second day’s ride and turned our bikes over to the mechanic who came with the tour. That was a great benefit. You could have a trained mechanic work on your bike for anything from general maintenance to a serious problem, and it was all part of the cost. Chris and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to just have him clean and lube things as needed. So, we left our bikes with him and went into the dorm where we were staying that night. We showered, ate dinner, and when we came out, our bikes were waiting for us. We were ecstatic because they looked like they were brand new. We started talking to the mechanic, and that’s when he said it. “You guys must be the flatlanders.” We said we were but we asked how he knew. He said, “Only strong riders or flatlanders who don’t know what they’re doing would attempt The Kanc riding with these!”

We definitely were the latter.

End of part one

I Can't WAIT!

By Roberta Durra            

           “Impatience”, I shall call it by its proper name, has dogged me since childhood and til’ this day continues to be my steady sidekick.  It sabotages many a meal in my kitchen, and wreaks havoc on all kinds of projects. Patience, on the other hand, is very much like my middle name…the name I never use, forget I have, but is there if needed for legal reasons.

            If you think I’m kidding about being impatient…allow me to enlighten you.

I flip to the end of a mystery novel to read the last page before I’m even through chapter 1. 

            I have washed so many wool sweaters in the washing machine, rather than taking time to hand wash, that my niece has an entire shrunken winter wardrobe for her Barbie doll.

            To best illustrate my lack of patience, you can ask my old college boyfriend. He most reluctantly agreed to part with his favorite jean jacket so I could embroider the classic Grateful Dead skull and roses logo on it. I easily drew out the design but then found the tediousness of hand embroidery grueling and annoying. Months later (tail between my legs) I returned his special jacket with a beautifully embroidered letter G, partially embroidered letter R, and only half of an embroidered rose.  

            My impatience has dealt some mean blows, particularly in the kitchen. The meals I prepare range from Food Network perfection to Horror Network nightmares. Take a bite, scream, and run for your life. That’s because I tend to choose difficult recipes, but then don’t follow the directions or measure the ingredients. Sure, a dab here, a dash there often works perfectly, but when it’s clearly not working, I become desperate. I have been known to impulsively dump a half bottle of red wine in the pot, and call it a day. This is right before I dump the whole shebang down the garbage disposal, leaving my kitchen with the sweet, inviting aroma of a home cooked meal, and my family with ‘In-And-Out Burgers’.

            I remember feeling impatient at 8 years of age while playing with a toy called Creepy Crawlers. It had molds of bug-like creatures, into which plastic goop was poured before being heated on an electric hot plate. The idea was to cook, cool, and then carefully remove your creepy crawly bugs with the provided tweezers. I was barely able to make myself wait 15 minutes to cook my crawlers, and completely incapable of waiting 10 minutes to cool them. The tweezers were awkward, so I got some pretty gnarly burns on my fingers pulling out freshly cooked crawlers. Is there a statute of limitations on bug burns, MATTEL?

            At the same time, my cousin had a really cool cotton candy machine. The trouble with that toy was you had to wait until the sugar was fully whipped by the machine and turned in to cotton. If you couldn’t wait for the machine to stop, like a “friend” of mine couldn’t, you’d get stung on your forearms with pellets of sugar. You can imagine that Band Aids on my fingers from Mattel, along with red rashes on my arms from sugar pellets, gave me a very attractive 3^rd grade look.

Funny…or is it, that even now, at this writing, my forearms are sporting 3 burns received during the preparation of 3 recent meals.

            If you’re not yet convinced I have a slight issue with patience, the list goes on…

When I do wear nail polish, it has tread marks on it from touching too early to see if it’s dry.

Put up wallpaper with me and after 45 minutes I will say, “You do it”, and let you finish the job alone.

            It’s not easy walking this impatient path. Why can’t I be more like Arnold Schwarzenegger?  He waited 13 years to tell Maria about his illegitimate child. He is nothing if not a patient man.

            The irony is I have never really considered myself impatient. But my inability to wait was brutally evidenced this Easter when I went to a friend’s egg decorating party. I brought lots of crafts to glue on to eggs. (FYI…a glue gun’s the fastest way to attach anything to anything). It’s just that while everyone was patiently dipping their eggs, letting the colors deeply sink in, I was towel drying my faintly colored eggs and plugging in the glue gun. Impatient or not, the eggs looked damn good!

            Looking back, the piece de resistance came when I was working wardrobe on a low budget movie. I was asked to be the “dead body” in a scene. All I needed to do was lay in a ditch while they filmed the actors talking in front of me. (Patience, by the way, is defined as “The capacity for waiting”). I couldn’t hear what was going on, and I was very curious, so I kept peeking out from the bunker while they were filming, infuriating the director. I’d peek. He’d yell. I’d lie still for a bit, then peek. He’d yell. Finally, I made myself stay still in the hole. This was not easy for me. And where did this great restraint leave me? When they finished the scene, they forgot to tell me, and left me in the ditch.

            At this point in my life, I can honesty say that I have the patience of a baby gnat, combined with the wisdom of a mother gnat who says “Slow down, baby gnat. You’ll do better if you take a little more time with things”. I know better than to rush, and yet…

I’m still the person who opens the oven door for a quick peek when I know perfectly well this will sink my soufflé.