Don't Ever Give Up, Kiddo

hands

Last week I spent a lot of time at the assisted living facility where my mother lives. Things have been extremely difficult for her lately, and thus for me, but I sure did enjoy the people at her table during lunch the other day.

"I know you," said Marge, a tiny, intelligent lady with a New York accent who gets about in a wheelchair. "You're the author. You're very good, you know. I've really liked everything of yours that I've read. But it's a tough field, writing. I hope you make it, kiddo."

I was flattered that Marge had read any of my writing (probably blog posts printed out by Carolyn, another resident and mutual friend)  but what really felt sweet was being called kiddo. I cannot even remember the last time anyone dubbed me kiddo, or viewed me from the vantage point of greater age and experience and wanted to encourage me.

And the idea of being someone who might yet have the potential to "make it"? Well,  I certainly haven't thought of myself that way in a very long time. But for a moment, it didn't seem ridiculous. For a moment, I felt young and filled with prospects.

Across from me sat Jack, a former Marine, veteran of Korea (the Forgotten War, he said, because it is) and Vietnam (twice). Prior to his being sent to Vietnam, Jack and his wife had a house in Memphis, where their neighbor was a young man named Elvis Presley who had aspirations for a career in the music industry.  He was just a kid then, someone you'd see out in the backyard, wave to, everything only beginning.

Vietnam?  Jack went not once but twice, sent back for a second tour after he thought he was done. But the Vietnamese people were among the most gracious, gentle, and hospitable he ever encountered and he wished he could have known them during peacetime. He told me about morning mists rising over rice paddies, fog clearing to reveal a tiny Vietnamese boy riding on the back of a water buffalo.  He spoke of a village where the American troops stayed in the futile hope that their presence would keep the Viet Cong away, and the horrific sight of the chief of the village murdered and strung up in a tree, a slaughtered pig alongside him. It was a clear message, Jack said, with tears in his eyes.

“I imagine sometimes  you just wondered why you were there," I ventured.

"No," said Jack. "We knew why we were there. It was war. I was a Marine."

Now Marge had to go to another table, because the facility was trying out a new chef and she had volunteered to be on a panel of residents who would sample a meal he prepared.

"Good luck," said Jack. "I guess if you don't die it'll be safe to eat."

Marge turned to me once more as she wheeled away. "I do hope you make it," she said again. "Don't ever give up, kiddo."

Then Sylvia stopped by, newly returned from a trip to the Dollar Store, and she handed Jack a handsome bamboo back scratcher. "I just knew this was something you'd like," she said. And Jack was pleased indeed.Toby arrived and took the place vacated by Marge, and Toby is someone I'm always glad to see. I told her that Jack had been telling me some interesting stories. "Oh, Toby has plenty of interesting stories of her own," said Jack.

Turns out Toby was in the Peace Corps in 1962, stationed in Chiang Mai, in the northern part of Thailand, a beautiful and culturally significant place. She taught English, developed teaching methods and curricula, was instrumental in helping to import local crafts at fair trade prices to a well-known store called Gump's in San Francisco. It's apparently still there.

"You never heard of Gump's?" said Jack. "Heck, I lost a wife in there once."

To hear Toby talk about the sixties is like hearing a song whose melody is familiar, whose lyrics you once knew and thought were true. Born in 1938, she was well into her 20s when the era began in earnest, and she embraced it fully and fearlessly. "Maybe all we hoped for didn't happen," she said. "Maybe a lot of it is forgotten. But oh, it was an amazing, exciting time. An idealistic time. We cared, we believed...everything seemed possible."

Another resident, Vivian, sits down. I've always wondered about her accent, and since I seem to be collecting stories, I ask her where she's from. "Pennsylvania," she says, "but really, coal country, near Ohi-ah. Some people might call it Appalachia."

Vivian started out to become a nurse but lost time due to illness, then re-started school as a business major and settled eventually in the big city, which was Pittsburgh.

Frank Sinatra songs are playing. Jack remembers going with his wife to see Frank Sinatra perform in New York City years ago, and ol' blue eyes sure did put on a good show. Then dear Augustine wheels by, Parkinson's taking its toll today, and he tells me in a voice I can hardly hear that my mother still isn't eating enough and he sees them take away her plate each day, hardly touched, and she would do better with a scrambled egg or something and I should talk to the front office. I am touched by his kindness.

And I'm thinking about how we and all our histories have converged here at this table at an assisted living facility in Santa Ana, California...and it seems nothing short of remarkable. I'm thinking, too, of resilience, how some people just take on the day, make the best of it, and keep going, dignity and decency intact.

"I make a choice every morning," Toby tells me. "I can wear a sad face or a smile, be miserable or happy.  It's entirely up to me. I choose."Don't ever give up, kiddo, I tell myself.