The Terrible Month of January

I don’t consider myself to be superstitious. None of the typically superstitious things that people tend to be anxious about have ever fazed me. A good example is Friday the 13th. My mother was born on Friday the 13th in the month of March. Wicca’s mother also was born on Friday the 13th in the Month of March (different years). So, Wicca and I have tended to celebrate and enjoy Friday the 13th’s. However, I do have one superstition…over the years terrible things tend to happen around me during the month of January. It has happened enough times that I find myself growing anxious as the month of January approaches. Every January, as the new year is celebrated around the world, I try my darndest to celebrate like everyone else, but in the back of my mind I’m asking myself what terrible thing is going to happen in January this year. It seems terrible things (most notably deaths) always happen around me in January. It hasn’t been this way all of my life. I don’t have any recollection of worrying about terrible things happening in January as I was growing up. I can only recall one very unpleasant January when I was a young adult. It was January 1968. My wife Dorry and I had married in December, 1967. We had a very low key wedding. We were married in Dorry’s mother’s apartment in San Francisco, and the only people who were in attendance were Dorry’s mother, her brother and sister, and my mother and father. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and my parents lived in Los Angeles. I had been in Optometry School at the University of California in Berkeley since 1965. All of my family and the majority of my life-long friends lived in Los Angeles. So, my mother had planned a gala wedding party at my parent’s home in Encino to take place in January. There were probably close to 100 people invited. Two days before the planned party my mother received a phone call informing her and my dad that my dad’s best friend had just been killed in a hunting accident. My mother and father were beside themselves with grief. I made the mistake of suggesting to my mother that perhaps the wedding party should be canceled, or at least postponed. My mother wouldn’t hear of it and she was quite angry at me for even suggesting it. The party was held, and it was a successful affair. However, there was a dark cloud over the festivities that I recall to this day. And that dark clound remains in my memory more so than the happiness.

Aunt Wooshie on the left My mother on the right

I guess my continuing anxiety with terrible things happening in January started with my mother’s death. My mom died on January 3rd, 1997. This was a time in my life when things were just starting to look up for me. Dorry had died of cancer in 1995 (not in January). The year leading up to Dorry’s death and much of the time following her death had been very hard on me and on my children. However, I had met my current wife Wicca online in 1996 and rather quickly we fell in love. We had a wedding planned for March, 1997 and so, my mother’s death in January of that year was particularly sad for me, not just because of my mother’s death, but because she would not be able to help me celebrate my wedding and the start of my new life.

The incident that really cemented January as a terrible month for me was Clayton’s death in January, 2000. Clayton was a Sheltie who was a faithful companion through most of the seventeen years that I lived in St. Louis. Clayton became much more than a faithful companion following Dorry’s death. Night after night Clayton was always there to console me and comfort me as I would cry myself to sleep. I credit my children and Clayton for getting me through that terrible time in my life. Eventually I met Wicca and developed a plan for the rest of my life. I realized that I needed some space from my life in St. Louis. I arranged for a 1-year sabbatical with the National Board of Examiners in Optometry. They were located in Bethesda, Maryland. It was planned that I would live in a studio apartment in the building that was next door to the National Board offices. That apartment building was not at all animal friendly. I moved into that apartment building in August, 1997. Wicca and I were recently married. At that time Wicca lived in Durham, North Carolina. The plan was for Clayton to move in with Wicca while I was in Bethesda, and once the sabbatical was over I would retire from my position as Associate Dean at the School of Optometry at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. Clayton did move in with Wicca for that year. Wicca is fond of telling people that for the first year of our marriage she lived with my dog. Wicca hadn’t lived with a dog for many years and I wasn’t at all certain how well that would work out. But it worked out quite well. Clayton and Wicca quickly grew to love one another. I drove down to Durham from Maryland and spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday with them on most weekends. The photo above is of Clayton taken in Wicca’s front yard in Durham. My plan following the sabbitical was to move in with Wicca and Clayton in Durham. Those long-range plans never materialized. While I was completing the sabbatical, a position became available at the National Board that seemed perfect for me. That position was Director of Clinical Examinations. I applied for that position and was hired. Wicca and I have been living in the DC area ever since. We bought a home in Chevy Chase, Maryland and we moved into that home in August, 1998. It was close to where I worked and close to DC. I loved the house and Clayton loved it too. Wicca has never especially loved our house. It is on Connecticut Avenue and Wicca has never liked that we live on such a busy 6 lane state highway. But we’ve been living happily here for many years.

Clayton died on my birthday in January, 2000. His death was completely unexpected. Clayton was getting fairly old. He was 16, but he was doing well for a senior dog. It was a nice day that Sunday. Wicca and Clayton and I had spent the afternoon walking in Rock Creek Park. After dinner Clayton went up to the bedroom to lie down. He did that a lot and I didn’t give it a second thought. A while later I went up to the bedroom. I remember seeing Clayton lying on his rug. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. I went over to give him a pet and it was then that I realized that he wasn’t sleeping, that he had died. It was a complete surprise and it shocked the hell out of me. I gave out a terrible scream and Wicca came running upstairs to see what had happened. It took me a long time to get over Clayton’s death. It felt like a part of me had died. To be honest, I don’t think I have ever gotten over it. The only thing good I can say about that incident is that Clayton didn’t have a painful or difficult death. He died peacefully in his sleep. From that terrible day on I grew to hate my birthday.

The next terrible January incident was my partial finger amputation on January 6, 2003. The cause of this injury is not very exciting, but to explain it I need to introduce you to Buttercup.

Ahhh Buttercup.

When Wicca was still living in Durham, I would look forward to walks with Clayton on my weekend visits. On those walks we would often walk past a house where a Golden Retriever lived. That Golden Retriever was usually out in the front yard as we walked passed. When he was outside I would walk up to him, pet him a little, and he and Clayton would romp in the lawn for a while. That Golden was very friendly. I told myself if I were ever to get another dog I would like a Golden Retriever. As part of the inducement to help make the move to the Washington DC area somewhat easier on Wicca’s 7-year old daughter Becca, Wicca had promised Becca we would get her a dog after they had moved. But I was not eager to acquire another dog at that point in time. Clayton was 14 and I was fearful that getting another dog would be difficult for Clayton at his advancing age. Because of my reticence, getting another dog had been postponed for as long as possible. But Becca kept bringing it up and so it couldn’t be postponed for very long. I suggested to Wicca that we look at Golden Retriever puppies. Buttercup joined our family in March 1999.

Becca came up with the name Buttercup. My concern over how Clayton would handle a puppy in the house was unnecessary. Clayton was very easy going and he handled the addition well. In fact Clayton seemed really to enjoy having a puppy to play with.

Buttercup had a very distinctive ridge down the middle of her muzzle. I remember it was that ridge on her muzzle that distinguished her from her litter mates, and that ridge on her muzzle was the reason I selected her to become a member of our family.

Buttercup was a natural at retrieving a tennis ball thrown out in the water. I guess “retrieving” is a natural instinct for Golden Retrievers, but Buttercup was especially good at it. As she matured, I would often take her to Rock Creek Park where we would while away the hours as Buttercup would fetch a tennis ball that I would throw out into the water. I’d throw the ball as far out into Rock Creek as I could, and Buttercup would take an enormous jump into the water and swim out to the ball and bring it back and always drop it right at my feet. Then she would stand there eagerly waiting for me to throw it again and again. People around us often remarked at how good she was at this. It was an activity we would enjoy throughout her lifetime.

Buttercup considerd me to be her most favorite human on the planet. I am confident that she would never intentionally do anything to hurt me. She weighed about 60 pounds. We currently have a fence around our yard but in those days our yard was not fenced in. So, I would take Buttercup for walks several times a day. One of our daily walks always took place right before bedtime. It was not a lengthy walk, we usually would just walk around the block. We had gotten into the habit of running home on the last stretch of that outing, just for a little extra exercise. Buttercup looked forward to that run. This particular night’s walk started out like all of the others. As we were walking down the street I allowed Buttercup to walk in front of me to the full extent of the leash. I was using a retractible dog leash. After a while she stopped to sniff something in typical doggie fashion. Normally when she did this, I would keep walking to catch up with her, and while I was walking toward her the cord would automatically retract back into the handle of the leash. On this night however, the cord became stuck and would not retract. I checked the locking mechanism and it was working correctly and was in the unlocked position. Once I caught up with Buttercup all of the cord was laying on the ground in front of me. We continued to walk and, while I was holding the handle of the leash in my right hand, I started tugging on the cord with my left hand hoping to get it to retract. Previously when the leash would jam and fail to retract, just a few tugs on the cord would get the retracting mechanism to operate normally. For some unknown reason, this night it was being obstinate. Pretty soon we reached the point in our walk where we normally would start our run and, with glee, Buttercup took off. At the same instant the leash began to retract. The injury occurred so quickly that I cannot say for sure exactly what happened. Apparently a portion of the cord was wrapped around my left index finger, and the combined force of Buttercup running forward and the leash retracting caused the cord to completely sever my index finger right at the first joint. It was very dark when this happened and I couldn’t see my hand clearly. I really didn’t comprehend the extent of my injury at first, I just knew that I was hurt because the pain was excruciating. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: DO NOT WALK LARGE DOGS USING A RETRACTABLE DOG LEASH. MY FINGER AMPUTATION IS NOT ALL THAT UNCOMMON.

As soon as we got closer to the back of our house the rear porch light afforded me the first glimpse of my hand and I saw with horror that I was missing a portion of my index finger. If this is possible, it seems to me that the initial realization of my amputation was considerably more painful and shocking than the physical pain I was experiencing.

I ran into the house and sobbed to Wicca that I had just lost a finger. The look on Wicca’s face when she saw my hand has been etched permanently into my memory. She turned very pale for a moment and then she inhaled deeply, and took charge as she does so well. She gave me a paper towel that she had soaked in cold water to wrap around my finger. My finger was bleeding but it wasn’t gushing blood. There was actually less blood loss than I would have predicted from a finger amputation. We quickly got into the car and drove to the hospital. That drive took perhaps 10 or 15 minutes but it felt like an eternity.

The details of my finger repair is interesting but outside the scope of this blog post. Suffice it to say that partial finger amputation was quite traumatic. It was the index finger of my left hand, and I am very left-handed. It took quite a long while to overcome the handicap of a partially amputated left index finger. My job required a lot of typing and getting used to this handicap took considerable effort. Over the years other obstacles became apparent. Most noticeably was the handling of delicate objects. The last decade of my working life I was a practicing optometrist. Manipulating eyelids while my patient was behind a biomicroscope was especially difficult. Eventually I got quite good at it in spite of this handicap.

This blog post is getting longer than I expected.

My aunt Wooshie died in January 2005. (See the photograph at the top of this blog post). I was very close to my Aunt Wooshie. She is my mother’s biological sister. My mother and her sister Rose (Wooshie’s real first name) were orphaned as infants. They were adopted by relatives, and my mother and wooshie acquired two step-sisters in their adoptive family. My mother and Wooshie were as close as two people could be to one another. For several years when I was young Wooshie lived with us. My mother and father were working full-time and Wooshie basically raised me. I was an only child.

I want to point out that not every January has been this terrible. So I should balance this morbid blog post by pointing out that two of the most wonderful and most memorable events of my adult life have happened in January. In January 2010 Wicca arranged to take me to Yosemite to celebrate my birthday. Yosemite has always been a special place for me. Growing up I would spend many summers visiting Yosemite. I consider Yosemite to be my favorite place on the planet. But I had never been there in Winter, and Wicca had never been there at all. So, Wicca arranged for this trip as a birthday celebration. Seeing Yosemite in January was magical. As we were driving into Yosemite the sun was setting and our first glimpse of El Capitan was truly spectacular. We had to stop the car and photograph that scene. Here is a photo Wicca took of me after we stopped and got out of the car on that drive into Yosemite. This is my most cherished photo ever taken of me.

Another memorable event took place in January 2013. Wicca threw me a 70th birthday party that year. Almost eveyone who was important to me was there. My kids were there. Segen, who was a foreign exchange student who lived with us for a while flew in from Germany for the occasion. Wicca even arranged to have my 1st cousin Dave Burgess and his wife be there. They lived in Nashville.

The women in my life. From my 70th birthday party, January 23, 2013

I’m going to end this blog post with one final terrible birthday incident. This last birthday. Just a week ago. It had actually been a lovely day. My son was in town to help me celebrate my 80th birthday. That night I came up to bed a short while before Wicca did. I was in bed just browsing through all of the many birthday wishes. One of my Facebook friends was a fraternity brother from when I was attending Pierce Junior College. He had written to wish me a happy birthday and wondered if I had heard that Helene had died. Helene and I had been boyfiend/girlfriend throughout all of my undergraduate college years. 1961-1965. We became engaged to be married in 1965, but the marriage didn’t happen as the result of a disagreement I had with Helene’s father, and a heated argument Helene and I had the next day. Helene broke off the engagement. That was in July, 1965. I tried to patch things up but I was unsuccessful and a month later I had to leave for Berkeley where I was starting Optometry school. That first year of Optometry school was all-consuming. I must admit I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Helene wound up marrying a man she had dated prior to our getting together. My parents really loved Helene. When I met and eventually married Dorry there were several times over the years where my mother would compare Dorry to Helene and I’m afraid Dorry didn’t win in any of those comparisons in my mother’s mind. But that didn’t matter much to me. Dorry and I loved one another tremendously and Dorry was always the winner in my mind. When I turned 60 I thought it would be fun to contact Helene and see how she was, and how life was treating her. Wicca helped me locate Helene’s email address. We wrote to one another a few times but that didn’t last long. We were living very different lives. So, when I read this Facebook post last week noting Helene’s death, it had been 20 years since I had really thought about Helene at all. I must admit Helene’s death caught me completely by surprise and really shocked me. I have lots of fond memories of the years Helene and I were a couple. One of the things I remember very vividly was that Helene was the picture of good health. She never smoked, she only consumed alcohol during social gatherings. She was very careful about what she ate and fastidious about maintaining proper weight. She exercised regularly when exercise wasn’t yet a “thing”. It never dawned on me that I would outlive her. I’m still trying to process the fact that she has died. I must admit Helene’s death has affected me more than I would have expected.

But, January is over. So, now I have another year before I have to worry about the next terrible January….