#76: Italy and USA, January – June, 2012
Goodbyes, Blizzard, Peninsula Prep

January

Gosh, what a month. One trial after another, most of them not the kind you can get over in a day.

My beloved (step)sister Mary Anne lost her three-year battle with cancer on January 8th. She’d gone into hospital over Christmas with pneumonia, and the doctors discovered that the cancer had returned throughout her body. She’d already had a lifetime dose of radiation last summer, so she elected to go home with hospice care. She died only a few days later, in her own bed with nearly all her loved ones near. Our older sister Barb arrived from South Carolina just ten minutes late, but she was able to stay with the family for the memorial service. I remained here in Italy. I’d had a premonition about Mary Anne toward the end of last summer and decided to spend some time with her in September, knowing it would mean I couldn’t also attend the memorial service. I felt so alone with my grief, but I will always believe I did the right thing to have those precious days together last autumn.

Mary Anne was a remarkable woman with an extraordinary ability for tolerance and love. She was a caring wife and mother, a businesswoman, active in her community and church, a volunteer who helped the elderly with their income tax returns even while she was in the midst of chemotherapy. Her smile lit up a room, and she bestowed that smile seemingly without effort on one and all. She left her life as valiantly as she lived it, and all of us who knew her are better for the example she gave us. I am blessed for having had her in my life.

While I was still trying to come to terms with the loss of Mary Anne, I got an email that my 99 year-old Aunt Margaret, wife of my Dad’s youngest brother, had been admitted to hospital with pneumonia and was not expected to live. Shortly thereafter, I was getting messages about procedures for dispersing her estate, so things looked pretty grim.

Then came the news that X — the man who holds Aunt Ethel’s power-of-attorney — had moved her to yet another care facility, the 4th in as many years. (You may recall that Adult Protection Services had brought the issue of his undue influence before the Arlington county court some years ago.) This latest move was basically without warning, taking her away from Fredericksburg, where she had friends who visited weekly, to Culpeper, VA, where the friends can come only once a month. The stress of the move seemed to activate her chronic bladder problems, and she reports that she doesn’t think the food is as good in her new facility. So I’m concerned about all sorts of things for her — lack of regular stimulation other than the minimum which staff can give, her growing dissatisfaction with the move, how many more bladder infections can she tolerate before her kidneys are affected (as they were three years ago) and what effect all this might have on her life-span.

Happily, Aunt Margaret has fooled everyone, doctors included, and returned to her care facility, albeit on oxygen. She says she intends to live to 103! Aunt Ethel’s complications continue, and I’m keeping the candles lit that she’ll whip the infection, adjust to her new facility and find new friends who’ll bring some sociability into her life. However, her blindness and deafness, joined with reclusiveness, make initiating friendships nearly impossible.

Brighter news: 

1) We trained to Florence to see “Money and Beauty: “Bankers, Botticellis and the Bonfire of the Vanities,” an exhibition using painting, sculpture, artifacts and interactive video to illustrate the ways in which Florentine bankers developed art patronage as a tool for wielding power.

2) A week or so later, in Rome, we toured “Leonardo and Michelangelo: Graphic Masterpieces and Roman Studies,” displaying more than 60 drawings by the two masters, demonstrating how their stays in Rome affected their work.

February

You no doubt saw that most of Europe experienced record levels of snow and low temperatures, and we were no exception. The jet stream shifted south, and Siberian temps blew in. These abnormalities, combined with moisture from the Mediterranean, meant that it was snowing even in North Africa. No one here has snow-clearing equipment, not even snow shovels. Again and again — three times! — we used regular shovels and a push-broom to clear our cement forecourt, driveway and lane up the hill. Back-breaking work for sure; I felt like I’d been in a train wreck. Then we found that the front gate was frozen, so we couldn’t get it open to drive out for supplies. The propane truck couldn’t get in to deliver, so I turned down both the heater and the thermostats to conserve fuel. We loaded up on warm clothes with padded vests, built a fire in the kitchen and waited it out, eating our way through stews, chili, tuna casseroles and the like from our freezer. 

Dutch neighbor Jacques phoned to say he’d been able to get his four-wheel drive as far as the cemetery directly above us on the hill. He and wife Oslem were going to Amelia and would give us a lift, if we could climb up to them. I hurried back to the house, put on all my Kazakhstan inner- and outerwear, walked behind our motorized wagon with caterpillar treads, steering it to the top of our lane for R to use later, and slogged the rest of the way to the cemetery through a fierce wind. J, O and I managed to get to town on slick roads and buy supplies. I phoned R as we left the supermarket, and he hiked up to where I’d left the wagon and drove it on to the cemetery in time to meet us and loaded our supplies. We headed back down to home inside what felt like a return of the blizzard, even though it was no longer snowing, just blowing. 

Only one of many adventures during two weeks, but you get the flavor. If such things build character, we must have had nearly a life-time dose! We can smile now, but we’re deeply cognizant of the hundreds who died all over Europe because of extreme weather.

As you might imagine, we really appreciated our subsequent trip this month to the Middle East with its welcome warmth and dry days.

March

Aunt Ethel’s nursing home called on the 10th to say  she’d passed away, peacefully and without pain. “A blessing” was my first thought. She’d been going downhill all fall and winter, easy to tell even from here during our weekly phone conversations. Blind, seriously deaf, with heart and kidney problems plus a skin cancer operation scheduled for the 26th, she’d found her life shrunk to the point that all who knew her remarked on how she could maintain the positive attitude that she did. 

I can’t help but wonder if the stress of X moving Aunt Ethel to yet another nursing home hastened her passing. She appreciated the care at the new home but complained of the food and lost nine pounds in a little over two months, a lot for someone as tiny and frail as she was.

I got the news on a Saturday afternoon, and thanks to Russell working with the AmEx travel office, I was on a plane the next morning. Monday found me at the funeral home in Arlington, VA, where she’d prepaid for their services, specifying that she didn’t want a funeral, just a cremation and burial in the plot with her parents and one brother in the nearby cemetery. Tuesday morning, I drove to her Culpeper nursing home to clear out her belongings, leaving her wheelchair and walker as gifts to the physical therapy department.

Immediately upon her death, X sent emails to the nursing home, funeral home and storage unit where her apartment furniture and other belongings were stashed to say that I was the person in charge. Shortly thereafter, he started kicking up a fuss, saying he wouldn’t cooperate until the court appointed me the Responsible Person, as Virginia law terms it. Luckily, neither the nursing home nor the funeral home needed such a designation. My being her only blood relative meant they were happy to work with me, and these activities went off without a hitch. The storage unit was more complicated, because he’d put it in his own name, although emailing the company that it and the contents were hers.

I elected to have a short graveside ceremony for those left behind, feeling we needed to say goodbye. So each person who came was invited to share memories, then I read her favorite Psalm (No. 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”), friend Joan Peed read “I am the resurrection and the life…” X came with girlfriend, father and Aunt Ethel’s legal docs which he flipped at me just before the ceremony. I put them in the back of the car and didn’t look at them until later.

Aunt Ethel had set up a trust prior to meeting X. This meant he couldn’t touch her estate, although he did seek legal advice on how to break the trust some three years ago when she had a bad fall, and I went to stay with her for three months. She later said she thought my being there had saved her life. I’m not sure if that’s so, but perhaps my presence may have dissuaded him from continuing to try to break her trust and access her funds.

X contacted the trust institution during the week after her death, asking what the next steps were, and was told he had no legal status once Aunt Ethel died, and they’d take it from there. So my two weeks in the States, trying to settle Aunt Ethel’s affairs, were made complicated and painful by X’s usual shenanigans, but the various institutions involved did their part, and all has ended well.

I’ll let Russell tell what’s been going on in Italy while I was away.

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We hired a new real estate agent to help sell our house. She said frankly that the market remains flat, even though some panicked sellers have halved their asking prices without success. Meanwhile, friends on the Monterey Peninsula, where we hope to relocate in the States, are urging us to come ahead as soon as possible, because U.S. housing prices are at an 11-year low and buyers are getting properties for 10-20% below the asking price. 

To start this transition while waiting for an Italian buyer, Nancy and I have decided to take turns going ahead to the Peninsula and beginning our start-up process in Pacific Grove, where we’d like to live. I’ll go first, in mid-April, renting a small furnished apartment as a base camp. In addition to opening a bank account and P.O box, buying Stateside medical insurance and investigating community services, I’ll get a better feeling for neighborhoods and properties that might appeal once we’re ready to buy. Nancy will take my place in late July, while I’ll return to our Umbrian farmhouse. By the end of September, we should have a clearer picture of our prospects..

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April

This has surely been the year for wacky weather. A blizzard in February, uncommonly warm in March, cold and rainy in April. The propane company got an unusual amount of calls for deliveries this month, and I got caught in the rush, having to wait three days with the heat turned off before delivery, in order to conserve gas for cooking and hot water. In the daytime, the only warmth came from the kitchen fireplace. Nighttime meant  huddling under two comforters with a couple cats cuddled close. I never knew turning the furnace back on could feel so good.

Thanks to my being away during much of March, early April was devoted to catching up with friends, including various meals connected with Easter. Suddenly, it was time to prep and pack for Russell’s three-month stay in California. I drove him to the airport on the 15th, we had an early dinner, and I headed back home, while he went upstairs for a short night’s sleep.

In the two weeks he’s been gone, I’ve been busy from dawn til dark, figuring out how one person can accomplish all that needs doing. I think I’ve got it down now, but mowing all this grass, cleaning all this house, running all those errands, etc. has been a real challenge.

May

Early in the month, I awoke in the middle of the night with a roaring urinary tract infection. I tried to wait it out until morning, but when the symptoms became pretty grave (you don’t want to know), I decided I needed a little help from my friends. At 3 a.m., I called Jacques and Oslem, who live on the other side of the hill. They got dressed, came over and drove me to the Emergency Room, where I was the only patient. I got immediate attention, and more important, immediate antibiotics, which had me doing better by mid-day. Back home, I slept 24 hours, only waking to feed animals and self. God bless good neighbors.

It seemed like I spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with various documents relating to Aunt Ethel’s death. Biggest problem was having my signature guaranteed in a way that satisfied U.S. institutions. I ended up going down to the U.S. Embassy in Rome for an American notary — two trips, standing in line, showing ID and absence of bomb-making materials, etc. etc. Luckily, I brought along a good book, a real page-turner, so all the waiting wasn’t too onerous.

I finally found a great handyman to take Graziano’s place. We were really spoiled working with this lovely man who was like our brother. When Graziano passed away, we tried various ways to fill the void. Looooong story short, I mentioned my difficulties in finding a helper when our mason was here, and he said he had a neighbor who was a pensionato looking for a little work to supplement his retirement income. Turns out Ascenzo (ah-shen-zo) is a jewel, hard-working, nice personality. Having labored together one morning a week for three weeks, I feel like I’ve finally hit the jackpot.

June

Atypical weather with strange storms sucking hot air out of the Sahara and causing 12+ days of temps around 100 and no end in sight. I try to get all errands and outdoor work done in the mornings and retreat to this thick-walled, heavy-roofed, old stone house where indoor temps stay in the high 70s and low 80s. With ceiling fans upstairs, it’s comfortable, but I’m surely looking forward to Pacific Grove’s cooler climate.

Yep, it’s my turn to come to the States. I’m leaving here on the 29th, staying overnight at the Rome Airport Hilton, taking a 6 a.m. plane to Amsterdam, then flying over the pole to San Francisco, arriving the next afternoon. If all goes well, that guy with a beard should be waiting for me. It’s been a long time apart, and we’re looking forward to our 2+ weeks together before Russell returns to Italy. I’ll be staying in Pacific Grove until early September, when I’ll fly to see my one-remaining relative, (step)sister Barb, in South Carolina. I’ve lost two loved ones this year, a strong impetus to spend time with my supersister before coming back to Italy mid-month.

Long-time friends and sorority sisters Shelley Melvin and Bettina Bennewitz spent a week here in early June. Luckily, their visit was wholly within a comfy weather period, so we were able to enjoy some fun sight-seeing and lots of sharing talk.

But it wasn’t long before the scorching temps settled in, and I felt the need to escape, if only for a day. So I drove up to Terminillo ski resort, where R&I have often gone for a summer mini-break. Remarkable this time was how many business establishments were closed — not for the season, but for good, thanks to the continuing and escalating economic crisis in Europe. Still, I had a nice time strolling here and there through the cool air, getting a sandwich at the mini-mart and eating it at the sole bar still open. I took a different route home, up and over a very scary pass and down a long alpine valley to Leonessa. Not for the faint-of-heart (and mine did palpitate here and there), but well worth the effort.

Toward the end of the month, everything seemed to go on the fritz at once — oven, phone system, television. We’d been hoping all this stuff would make it through to the house sale, but they were over 15 years old, and it was their time to go. I managed to find good technical help and reasonably-priced replacements, so R won’t have to face busted gadgets when he comes home.