Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

I received the most amazing Valentine from my husband. A huge chocolate heart that serves as the BOX for the chocolates inside. When I first saw it, I was overjoyed, just thinking that it was a huge hollow chocolate heart and wondering how I would eat it all. But then my husband pointed out that I should open it up. It was filled with the most beautiful and yummy chocolates made by local choclatier extraordinaire, Joseph Schmidt. It's the best Valentine I've ever received. (And they were American chocolates! Quelle surprise!)

Sadly, our sweet little evening came to an early and crashing end when we received news that my husband's father was taken to the hospital Valentine's morning. His housekeeper had found him babbling incoherently. He's in intensive care and from what the doctors can determine at the moment, he's had a stroke and perhaps a coronary in addition. I volunteered to go down and stay with him, because I'm the only one in the family who has the flexibility to do so, and will probably fly down today. I'm waiting to get a report from the relatives who are with him now. So if you don't hear from me until next week, it's because I'm in Los Angeles without access to a computer.

My father-in-law is a great guy who is ninety-one, and hasn't had any health problems until the last two years. His health started to go bad just a few months before his wife died. My husband just spoke with him on Saturday and my father-in-law told him that he was excited about and planning on staying with us in France this summer. He visited for a month two years ago and really enjoyed the lifestyle, the neighbors, and the countryside. Even though he doesn't speak French, the neighbors made every effort to make him feel welcome . . . speaking English or Spanish to him, or letting me translate in my inadequate French. They listened respectfully and attentively to his remembrances of D-Day and World War II. At one party, he was surrounded by young women who were quizzing him about World War II in English. He especially enjoyed all the "kissing" that everyone bestowed upon him in greeting and departing.

That's another aspect of French life that's refreshingly different than in the U.S. The French respect elderly people.

When he arrived at the moulin in early July, he was dressed in heavy wool clothes. By the time he left, he was walking around in his t-shirt. It was abnormally hot that summer, but we feel that the change in his internal temperature came about because we put some fat on his bones by feeding him the typical French cuisine. He had been on a low fat diet in the U.S. So when he returned to the U.S. he wasn't cold anymore . . . for a few months anyway, until he went back on his low taste, low pleasure, low fat diet.

Did I mention before that the only thing that matters in life is love . . . seasoned with good food and friends?

Yesterday was a day for bad news, as I received an e-mail from a friend telling me that a high school friend of mine was in the hospital in Montana, going in and out of a coma.

The older I get, the more I believe in fate. I believe that control over your life is an illusion. My friends will debate me for a while, but they can never argue away the fact that illness and death strip away the myth of self-determination that Americans are erroneously obsessed with. If you're a big believer in self-determination, I suggest you go debate with Roger or my husband's father, or any of the other men who have had their lives altered by war. Call up someone in Iraq right now, an Iraqi, an American soldier, an insurgent . . . they'll set you straight about fate and your illusions of control.

My friend was a beautiful, athletic, academic young woman in high school. She came from one of the best families in town. She had absolutely everything going for her. Then, when she was in college she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her life was put on hold while she battled that plague, but she eventually went on to get a PhD in psychology. She hung out her shingle and started practice. Her movements were slightly affected, she had been slightly paralyzed on one side of her body. Her perfect looks were gone. But she shouldered on and has always been an inspiration to me.

Eight years ago, another tumor showed up in her brain. This one was benign. However, while in the hospital she developed an infection and lapsed into a coma for eight months. She had to have an operation on her feet because she hadn't used them in so long, and then she had to learn to walk again.

My friend's experiences are the experiences of everyone of us. Slowly, everyday, but our egos don't want to admit it, we fade away. We're perfect, we're looking hot, and then one day the wrinkles show up, or the hair falls out, or our joints start hurting and we start our slow descent into the grave. We, the healthy arrogantly, run around fooling ourselves that we're different, we're in good health, we've got good genes, we take care of ourselves, we eat right, et al, ad nauseum. What illnesses and catastrophies befall our friends won't knock on our door.

But we're only fooling ourselves. There's a car wreck with our name on it. There's a bullet reserved for us. There's a terminal disease brewing inside us. Or, if you successfully outrun the accident- crime - disease gamut there's that extremely patient fucker waiting at the finish line: Monsieur Old Age. He doesn't care that you ate salmon and tofu morning noon and night, jogged all those miles or spent thousands of dollars on on those face lifts, he's got a rendez-vous with you, and it's chiselled, not penciled, into his organizer.

So what's a girl or boy to do?
All you can do is love, love, love.
Life's too short to be afraid of eating chocolate.

And here's evidence that the folks in the Social Security Administration want to hasten your exit:
http://http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/15/BAGU1BB1S81.DTL