Articles by Suzanne Messing

Recently two long-time friends disappeared from my computer screen. No emails, no Facebook posts.

CaroLyn was my college roommate at the University of Michigan. I was an undergrad, she was a graduate student when we met, already engaged to marry. After graduating and marrying she moved to Texas City. There she and her husband raised four children and she taught linguistics at the community college.  We started corresponding very early, first writing letters and later by email. Whenever she or her husband came to the New York area, we saw each other. It was during one of these trips that we met her husband and became fond of him. I traveled to Houston only once and of course took the bus to Texas City to see her. However, although I learned quite a bit about her children from her letters, I never met them.

Monique, a noted pianist and piano teacher, became my husband’s friend in Venezuela, part of a circle of young French people, most of them artists, living and working there. When I married Marius and started traveling to Venezuela I met Monique. She was then already the mother of two girls, Ondine and Ariane. I cannot remember how old the girls were at the time but I have a memory of young teenagers. Monique, having divorced, eventually moved to Honk Kong with her new husband, a violinist with the Honk Kong Symphony.

Ondine and Ariane, came to the U.S to attend college and then moved to the New York area. It was at that time that Ondine lived with us for a while in our New Jersey home. We became good friends and exchanged letters when she moved on. Ondine led a peripatetic life. Her father lived in London, her mother in Honk Kong and she had grandparents in France. Eventually Ondine joined her mother and stepfather in Honk Kong where she became involved with a man and had a daughter of her own.

Again, the family moved. Monique got a job as a professor of piano at Oberlin College. Ondine followed and tried to create a life of her own in Ohio.

To get back to the beginning, when CaroLyn stopped writing for a while, I sent an email and got no answer.  Lately Monique had communicated mostly via Facebook. No Facebook posts or emails. She usually called once or twice a year. No calls. Our calls were not answered. What happened to our friends? Were they sick, did they move, did they die? We don’t know, but their children know.

This post is an appeal to adult children. I think children have an obligation to inform their parents’ close friends when a life-changing event occurs and the parents themselves are not able to communicate.

Although CaroLyn’s children do not know me personally, they must have heard something about me and my husband in the more than 50 years of our friendship with their parents. If they went through their parents’ possessions or address books they probably saw something of our long correspondence. If they checked their mother’s emails, they had to see something about me. Here we do run into a modern problem that a young woman that I discussed this issue with pointed out to me. She said “I have to be sure to get the password to my father’s email.” Thank you, Aprile, I did not think of that myself.

I remember quite clearly that when my grandmother in France died, although we already knew  this via phone calls, we nevertheless received in the mail an announcement informing us of her death. It was a French tradition to send such announcements, just like birth or marriage announcements. Wanting to know if this was still common in France I emailed one of my cousins. “Yes,” he told me” and “such announcements often include information about the religious or memorial service.” An old tradition worthy of copying, in my opinion. But what chance do I have of convincing anyone today when we get even marriage invitations via email.

I wasn’t born a cripple. It was a gift of aging.

I am a cripple like Tiny Tim is. He used crutches and a device to help him stand. I use a walker. I assume he needed this special device because he had no balance. I also have no balance. I must always, no matter what I am doing, hold on to something. His condition, Dickens implies, is due to poverty and poor nutrition. The exact reason for my situation, I do not know. Is it weak muscles, weak bones. My doctors never said.

First, an aside. Some people will object to my use of the word “cripple”. They prefer “handicapped” or “disabled”. Others may object because I am far less incapacitated than they are. I say each person can choose the term she prefers.

I started to use a cane about 17 years ago. I remember because I used it for the first time when I visited my granddaughter Hannah’s pre-school and she is now 20 years old . My first symptom was very peculiar. When I walked, I had to stop fairly frequently. My ability to walk just seemed to lock up. I could not take another step until I stopped for a minute or so. The diagnosis was stenosis of the spine. All kinds of treatments followed: physical therapy, epidural injections.One of my physicians taught me a little trick. When my ability to walk locked up, “ crouch slightly down,” he said. Sure enough this seemed to open up the spine so it was not leaning on the nerves and I could continue walking. But I had to do this quite frequently.

Then one day I woke with a truly horrible back pain. I could not lie down on the mattress again. I started sleeping in an armchair and eventually bought a recliner and slept in that. Time to see a surgeon. I had started to use a walker a short while before the surgery. The surgery was a complete success. I was totally pain free. I told the surgeon that my objective now was to get rid of the walker. He said something like “ Oh,we’re going to get you a snazzy walker…” I replied, “Thanks a lot.” In rehab, I repeated that my objective was to get rid of the walker. The therapist did not say anything but I could tell that she thought that would not happen.

My doctors never explained why I had to graduate from a cane to a walker. What had deteriorated, nerves, bones, muscles? Perhaps it was an unholy trio. My ophthalmologist gave me the best answer. “Perhaps they don’t know.”

So here I am. I now consider myself a member of a new community. But no one can really understand another’s life. I don’t claim to know what people with other handicaps experience. This is why I am writing this. To explain to my friends and others who might be interested just what my life is like.

First I want to say how grateful I am to those who fought to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed. This is a very wide ranging law dealing mostly with employment discrimination but it includes a section on public accommodations. Where would I be without sidewalks that were pared down so I could easily cross a street, or get in and out of stores, movies, restaurants, etc. Or without public bathrooms that have bars to hold on to.

I feel I have used up my quota of falls. Fortunately these were all in my apartment and not outdoors unto concrete. So, much of my life revolves around avoiding more falls. Let’s take the shower for example. For some reason, the shower was always a place of creativity for me. This is where I seemed to get ideas and sometimes write whole articles in my head. No more. I must reign in my wandering mind. Concentrating on the task at hand is essential. Look where you move your feet, not unto the slippery metal drain. Remember, I must always hold on to something, so I have just one hand to do all the work. No more lingering an extra moment under the relaxing water. I have to organize my washing and get out as soon as possible. I no longer wash my hair in the shower. A boon for hairdressers.

When I walk, I force myself to keep my eyes on the ground. I need to see every crack in the sidewalk, every little hole. If someone comes along and says “hello”, I have to remember to stop before I look up to see was talking. If I don’t look up I, of course, will appear to be very rude.

At home, I have to forget about efficiency. It will take several trips to move clothes out of the dryer to the bed where I usually fold them and several more to hang clothes in the closet. The closet is actually one of the more scary places to be. Using just one arm, it is not so easy to hang things away. Holding on to something is problematic. Shelves are notoriously unreliable.

To be a successful cripple you have to be inventive and flexible. But small ideas that make your life easier don’t always come quickly. It took me quite a long time to figure out how to get the heel of my stocking on the heel of my foot.

My relationship with people is the most important and interesting part of my life. On the whole, people have been incredibly kind. Almost all even go out of their way to be helpful.

I remember only once did a woman mutter under her breath because I was in her way. Being handicapped is also a test of friendship. When I lived in New Jersey I was very fortunate to have a group of friends willing to pick me up to go out to lunch or dinner. These good people had to put my walker in when they picked me up, take it out when we arrived at our destination, put it again when we were ready to leave and take it out once more when we arrived at my house. Obviously this is a pain. In Amherst, my daughter often takes on this job. And I have access to vans, courtesy of the complex where I live. But in spite of friendly public accommodations, when I do go to a restaurant, I seldom see another handicapped person there. Yes, we cripples do go out, but it appears, not that much.

One other interesting aspect about people has to do with natural abilities. As we all know, we all have different talents and so it is with peoples’ natural instincts as to what to do when they are around me. Among my closest friends, there are a few who always know how to give me a hand and others who look helpless and don’t have a clue. A cripple has to learn to overcome her reluctance to ask for help and tell people what she needs.

For me, time is my biggest problem. I have to confess that when I was small, my report card was often marked “tardy” which is an old-fashioned way of saying “late.” Later, still having a tendency to rush out at the last minute, I would say I have a “deadline personality.” I don’t get going until I am close to my deadline. But realizing full well that people did not appreciate my appearing a few minutes late, I struggled to change my habits. Now I cannot rush, which means I have to plan very carefully to get anywhere on time and I do not always succeed. I often wonder how much longer does it takes me to do anything than other people my age, twice as long? Three times as long?

I have always remembered a little boy I saw, about six-years old, in a wheel chair laughing his head off watching kids fool around in the pool. It was a poignant scene. “Bless him,” I said to myself. “If this is his true personality, he will be O.K.” I have adjusted quite well to my situation. I view my problems as inconveniences. Sometimes it takes a lot of patience to live with inconveniences. To be satisfied while handicapped I think you need certain conditions, contacts with people being most important. In that respect, I am very fortunate. I have a husband, good children, loyal friends. I also have some access to transportation. Who could ask for anything more?

When I want to write about people like myself, I wonder what word to use. “Old” is dated. No one calls herself old today, and even the professionals who attend to us, doctors, etc., avoid the word. “Senior citizen”? I really dislike this one. “Elder”? A dignified expression. It implies a position of leadership, like the village elders who are often consulted in tribal societies. I do call myself the village elder of my tribe of first cousins simply because I am the oldest. As the elder, I say, I have the obligation to transmit stories about the family that I know and they probably do not. But no one consults me and I do not expect them to. As a matter of fact, I often consult my cousins in their areas of expertise. So, what word to use for myself and my contemporaries? Oldie? Oldster?

……………………………………………………………………………………………

One modern name change really bothers me. I can’t quite forgive the homosexual community for appropriating “gay”. I love the traditional meaning of that word. It was so descriptive of a certain mood, as in the book title “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay”. Of course the gay community can choose whatever name they want. But what can we use as a substitute for the original meaning? “Happy” is not the same. “Carefree” maybe, but a bit heavy.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Making up alternative names for President Trump seems to have become something of a national pastime. Just browse the Web and you will find a list of hundreds, many pejorative. Names for Trump followers, not so many. Should we use Trumpists? Trumpians? For his advisors who look favorably on Putin, Trumpniks?

Here we are. We have crossed the threshold into a new year and into a new political era.

I have written before that this is not a political blog (may I add, most of the time). But I am a grandmother and I feel obligated to give some thought to the future. Aside from climate and health, politics determines our future. And I feel uneasy .

May I say, this has been the most difficult post to write.

In all fairness, and I care about being fair, what can one say about something that has not yet happened, even if we have some strong indications. Waiting for events to actually happen can be deadly. I think of the modern horrors which I have experienced and also those suffered by other people. My family had the good fortune or perhaps the foresight to get out of France before the Nazi takeover. My husband and I have also had a close connection to Venezuela. Many of our friends were optimistic about the election of Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan governments had not paid enough attention to the poor. Our good-hearted middle class friends thought that Chavez would improve the lives of the most deprived people. Sadly, Venezuela is now at the bottom of nations in all possible ways.

I have faith in the structure of the American government and I do not expect to have to flee. But we all know that our institutions have not always protected us and we have experienced some very troubling times . And as we are learning every day, some of us right, now have reasons to feel anxious every day . Do I really need to specify: young black men, illegal immigrants and others.

So what do you do about despair? Taking action is a good antidote. I marched in support of the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), in several abortion rights marches, in a protest march when Kent State students were killed by the Ohio National Guard, and in shock when Martin Luther King was murdered. I’m glad I did and wish I had been free to join the great civil rights marches, but I had babies to take care of.

My daughter Tobi and granddaughter Lily, a junior in college, are planning to join the March for America in Boston. I asked Lily why she wanted to go. “ I want to be in a place with a lot of other people who feel the same way about the political climate, that is, that we won’t stand for regression, we will be watching, we won’t be quiet. I care about all the issues the march stands for, but especially women’s health, race and LGBT . I want to stand up for myself and for others I know who are not even comfortable coming to marches.”

I am so happy my daughter and granddaughter have chosen to be part of history .

Now as to the immediate future, what troubles me most is not what I may consider bad decisions by our new government, but making terrible mistakes. We are going to have a president who can’t keep his mouth shut. He has to respond to every trivial event, even a speech by an actress. Meryl Streep is not trivial, but does the next president of the U.S.A. really need to take time to respond to something she said and insult her at the same time. Is there any way we can take away his Twitter account. I am petrified he will say something inappropriate to the president of China Xi Jinging, or Kiu Jong-un of North Korea or Vladimir Putin. Such mistakes can lead to disasters. They have in the past. Then we will have to rely on his appointees and our legislators to repair the damage. We may not care for many of them, but we have to assume that those who have achieved high positions in their work can think and evaluate. As long as they are not prisoners of ideology, they can change their mind. Hopefully they will think hard about what is really the public good. That is my only hope.

And of course, we have to keep marching.

Letter
Phone
Email
Texting
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Better communication or more opportunities to mess up?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

President-elect Donald J. Trump to British prime minister, Theresa May,
“Tweetie, when you come to the U.S., do call me and drop by.”
I do not believe in predictions.
I predict the Trump presidency will be a golden age for cartoonists.
I predict news organizations will have to fire half their writers in order to double their number of fact checkers.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Thank you for reading my blog. Enjoy warm holiday celebrations and a peaceful year in 2017.

This is not a political blog, but anyone writing on a public site cannot ignore saying something about the incredible Clinton/Trump election.

Sometime around June, 10, 1940, I remember my parents sitting at the kitchen table in our Paris apartment, talking intensely. They were not paying attention to me. I was 8-years-old. We were having a very light supper, strawberries and cream. I liked strawberries and cream and wanted more but hesitated to interrupt them. When I finally did, my mother smiled apologetically and said of course, I could have more, and then went back to talking.

The Germans had defeated France. The French government was fleeing. Thousands of Parisians followed suit and started riding or walking out of the city. My parents were trying to decide what to do. I never forgot the tension in that kitchen. Finally, members of the greater Messing family decided to try to hire a driver with a truck, no one in the family knew how to drive, and this is what we did, taking almost nothing with us.

I have remembered the feeling of the tension in that kitchen all these years and this is how I felt this election day. Of course I did not have to go into exile. But how could I not be tense as Americans were choosing a man with no governing experience and no knowledge of international affairs to lead our powerful country. In previous elections we all had preferences and of course who we chose made a difference. But never were the stakes so high. We have good reasons to be very afraid of the consequences of this election.

Our personal lives will continue. We will go to work, take children to school, get groceries and exercise if we can: sunrise, sunset. We will be subjected to countless commentaries trying to explain why the people rejected a brilliant, experienced woman and chose a completely unprepared, unprincipled man to lead us. I don’t expect to be enlightened. Long after I am gone, historians will begin to study this election. In the meantime I hope the nation survives with its great ideals intact.

During the Olympics, viewers noticed that Michael Phelps and other athletes had red circular marks on their back. The news soon came out that they had been using cupping, described as an “ancient Chinese healing practice.” My grandmother Teltsa, born in Poland but living in Paris, would have been surprised by that description.

Other swimmers as well as members of the U.S. men’s gymnastics team were displaying cupping spots. Some commented that it helped them recover from soreness faster and made them feel good.

My grandmother had six grown children with families of their own living near her. Whenever a family member was suffering from a cold, or bronchitis or another similar illness, Teltsa would run over, bearing her special little glass cups, a thin wooden wand wrapped in cotton at one end, and a bottle of alcohol. Teltsa worked fast. She dipped her wand in the alcohol, lit the end from a burning candle, quickly swept the inside of a cup with the burning wand and applied the cup to the patient’s back. She would do this a couple of times before extinguishing the flame, and then light it again and place more cups until the back was covered. As I remember, she did not leave the cups on long. By the time she finished placing the last one, she was ready to remove the first one. The result was a back full of puffy little red pillows of flesh. They did not last long, and the congestion cleared.

From some browsing on the net, I learned that the Chinese were, in fact, latecomers to cupping. The treatment is mentioned in an Egyptian papyrus, was used by the ancient Greeks and “recommended by the Prophet Muhammed”. What my grandmother had in common with the Chinese is that they too used it as to alleviate the discomforts of respiratory illnesses.

As to how Teltsa learned her skill, I found out in the Wikipedia entry. Maimonides wrote about the treatment in his book on health and thus it was used within the Eastern European Jewish community, the community from which she hailed.

Just in case you want to know more, I can tell you that a dictionary search informed me that you may use “cup” as a verb: to cup, he cups etc. but there is no such word as a cupper for one who performs the treatment. You have to say something clumsy like “practitioner of cupping” or, in my grandmother’s case, I would say “family healer”.

How effective was Teltsa’s remedy? I can only tell you that when my uncle Maurice had moved to America, he once asked his wife to give him a cupping treatment. She told me that she wouldn’t do it because she now had wall to wall carpeting and she was afraid of possibly causing a fire. And so American affluence caused cupping to disappear both as a family tradition and little by little as a topic of nostalgic conversation. Until it reappeared in the Rio Olympics, and now, not only the family, but everyone is talking about it.