Working the System

They met at age 12, married at 21, stayed married for 63 years. And both were gravely ill, together, as they’d always been. We never imagined that. Moreover, they hadn’t either. For the first time since seventh grade, my parents weren’t able to care for each other.

August 2009. Novices in our situation. New to a system. We were caregivers. Financial

planners. Chauffeurs. Personal assistants. Errand-runners. Note-takers. Translators. Keepers and givers of history. Medication dispensers. Eyes and ears for doctors who couldn’t see everything. Advocates for the elderly.

There was hardly time left just to love them.

My mother moved to a rehab facility to recover from physical and emotional ills while Dad healed after open cranial biopsy for a large brain mass. ‘Crisis’ doesn’t feel an adequate descriptor as I look back. I recall adrenaline surging with chaos, overwhelm, helplessness and panic, all coursing through family veins.

Profound sadness set in as we absorbed the probability of losing both mother and father in the coming months. We grieved for them as they faced their own worst fear, one being left without the other after being together since grade school.

Their relationship had endured for 72 years. They no longer had separate memories.

We originally hoped to return my parents with health support to their home nestled near the wilds of Yosemite. It quickly became clear that was unrealistic. Dad’s treatment included weeks of radiation during which he needed outpatient care Mom couldn’t provide and transportation to various appointments hours from their home; she no longer drove even if well enough to do so.

We conjured a second plan with temporary, respite housing for Dad a mile from me and located next door to where Mom was convalescing. Assuming she was physically and mentally restored and he lived longer than the dire prediction of 3 months, we hoped to situate them in a senior-friendly apartment back in the Bay Area “beehive” my dad had tried to escape. I could deliver meals, home healthcare would oversee meds, and Mom could remain mistress of her domain, a key factor in helping her cope. Dad, when able, need not drive more than ten minutes to anything.

Though she came around several times, it was always temporary. Mom wasn’t able to maintain sound health for longer than six weeks without re-hospitalization. A fragile mental health component concomitantly lurked making treatment difficult and emotional support challenging. Dad worried constantly about her, unable to do anything but watch.

Again we shifted gears. A permanent move was made to an assisted living environment with professional staff to support them as family provided for all other needs.

To finance the situation we sold their home, scrutinized income sources and savings, and began to work the system into which we were conscripted. Our goal was to provide long term care should the doctors be wrong in their longevity predictions.

We spent hours on the Internet researching treatment and understanding likely disease trajectory.

We investigated free and low cost third-party services that might help us leverage the system for financial assist. My brother and I became familiar with Veterans Administration services, their aid and attendance program, military service pension and medical care.

We contacted the county and state, learned about California’s Council on Aging and what it might provide. We sought out nearly free transportation services through the county and took steps to qualify my parents. We looked into volunteer offerings through the parish church that served my parents’ new residence. We talked to social services at the hospital where they were treated. We met with an elder care attorney seeking information about my parents’ rights and ours to act on their behalf.

We had my parents sign sweeping Powers of Attorney (POA) documents so we, their children, could act in concert or independently in pursuit of their interests without redundant signatures or total burden on a single child. Brother One handled financial issues, Brother Two sold their house, and I handled all logistics pertaining to medical care and living arrangements.

Armed with all we knew and attempted to learn about the system, we were still ill equipped to wend our way through the top-heavy, overburdened bureaucracies of the state of California, and federal government as related to the Veterans Administration. Stabilizing my parents’ medical and financial situation became my full-time job.

The VA has labor-intensive protocols in place that take months, even years to navigate. Close to one year passed between filing the initial claim and the first ‘aid and attendance’/pension payment to my parents. This time frame was considered a WWII veterans fast tracked process. Even then, the claim was processed incorrectly and the fix took another year. The corrected payment, thankfully so, was retroactive to the date of first filing, by then nearly two years prior.

I had 22 years of experience in medical administration that allowed me to comprehend physician-speak and ask important questions. I could talk knowledgably with case managers, crack the code on health insurance benefits statements and hospital bills, and understood the Medicare system with which I had worked as a liaison during my healthcare career.

My patience was still tested by red tape, errors, and the failure to correct them that I frequently encountered. My experience helped me recognize mistakes, ask questions and make requests but generally served to irritate those to whose attention I brought them. A helpful, effective representative was a godsend who changed the tenor of an entire week.

I could be terse, even short-tempered, with someone who seemed obstructive. There were times I had to lay down the load, take a walk, nap, or zone out with computer games to shake off a day of frustrations due to roadblocks, or transfers to multiple phone agents each asking again why I called.

In all of this, lessons were learned.

I recorded names and numbers of specific contacts within organizations whose knowledge was broad, deep and accurate. They became my contact points.

I worked better with the mounds of paper when done in short bursts with breaks between tasks; I started out with specific, small goals tailored to the complexity of the chore.

In what now seems a prescient moment, I had a year earlier asked my dad to compile documents I could easily find if needed. I included these items:

• Copies of my parents Social Security cards
• Copies of their health insurance/Medicare cards
• Original marriage certificate
• Original U.S. military discharge papers
• Original birth certificates

These allowed me to file for the VA benefits my dad had earned during his military service but never used, and his original service documents were needed. A Power of Attorney allowed the VA to work with me.

My mother, as spouse of a veteran, was also entitled to benefits that were/are more easily procured while the veteran is alive. Benefits can be obtained after death but the process, already arduous, is longer and more difficult. We filed on Mom’s behalf as quickly as possible given my father’s poor prognosis.

My parents were proud that they had been on top of things, ‘affairs in order’, wills drawn, durable powers of attorney for healthcare designated, and POAs executed in case of emergency. But it wasn’t until we needed those documents that we found their POAs unsuitable, good only if they were dead.

The document was also sequential. “If Miss America is unable to fulfill her duties, the crown then goes to…”, with power rolling from one parent to the other then on to the kids. In our case, both were out of commission and neither deceased. We had no power to act for them.

We couldn’t allocate responsibilities among us until procuring a different type of POA.

We were fortunate to have discovered this before my dad’s brain surgery so his competence was not at issue, and while my mother was still tethered to reality sufficiently to understand their paperwork wasn’t applicable during incapacitation. We obtained new forms from a local office supply store and a hospital staff notary witnessed execution.

No single individual (including pricey third party senior advocates and attorneys) was more instrumental in assisting us to successfully secure VA benefits than the Veteran Services Officer through our county Health and Human Services Agency. The overworked individuals in this role are themselves veterans and understand the system; they act as veteran advocates as well as being public servants at the community level. Their plates are overflowing.

Our officer was an expert. He explained the VA system, criteria and process. He sat with me while I completed applications. He gave a heads up as to where we could expect bumps in the road and info on how to prepare. He schooled me in the best way to work the system without gaming it, nibbling at the edge of ethics or compromising integrity.

He greased the skids wherever he could and verified we were in process when something seemed out of timeliness. He coached me on language to use when being interviewed by VA representatives, and reassured me every step of the way.

Had I not found him, in conjunction with time to learn the VA system and my own prior medical background, the outcome for my parents would have been very different.

When we had exhausted our own abilities and all avenues in bankrupt California, we had to become even more creative in our research. It was then we learned of the Arizona Long Term Care System. My dad will eventually enter ALTCS. The program will make certain there is no change in his current living situation. His shift in financial status from independent to state funded will be invisible to him and outside observers.

As the Yiddish proverb aptly says, Man plans, God laughs. We find ourselves in uncharted territory once more. My father, now unthinkably four years post-diagnosis, has outlived his wife and his ability to care for himself. His memory is greatly compromised due to the brain radiation that saved his life. He relies on care from professionals and family and is monitored around the clock.

I traded places with Brother One. After more than three years in my care, Dad now lives in Arizona, a state that has gone to great thought and expense to provide for its elderly population in the most dignified manner possible and, coincidentally, where my brother resides. Arizona will pick up the difference between combined VA and Social Security benefits, and the actual cost of maintaining my father. I visit monthly to lend a hand and I manage everything that can be handled remotely. Brother One provides all logistical day-to-day support.

This isn’t a pretty story. It’s not one I relish telling. It was and remains painful to live. It is told with profound disappointment at having to see my parents, now just my dad, down a path he would find humiliating were he competent to understand. But I believe more and more of us will face these challenges and wanted this story told with as much useful information as I could transmit.

Working the system has new meaning in my family. Because of the work we did to find out what’s available we were not only able to shelter my parents well, comfortably, and lovingly, we’ve also eased financial obligations on two subsequent generations that had pulled together to cover the financial needs of its elders.

The Greatest Generation put much of this system in place. Some of them now need to access its benefit, freeing their children to provide for their own old age.

But pursuit of these benefits in conjunction with care for my parents was an all-encompassing quest. The system works but working the system was difficult. Should it be easy in the face of potential graft and corruption? Probably not, but it shouldn’t be this hard either.

Who said, “Growing old ain’t for sissies?” Bette Davis? True, true.

Watching out for those growing old takes grit, too. Work the system. It is work, and all the help we’d wish isn’t there but some is.  Find out what’s there for you and yours. Be creative. Pull your documents together and be sure they’re the right ones. Nurture connections. Get stubborn. Make the system work for you. 

No One Knows How to Do This

I met my oldest friend when we were four. We don’t know everything about each other but 56 years later, let's say our history is extensive.

When we played as pre-kindergartners our parents were less than half the age we are now. We thought they were Methuselah’s older cousins. Now we laugh at how they managed to raise seven of us ranging in age from newborn to eight when they were really very young themselves. In retrospect it’s quite amazing. We all made it to adulthood, some with our own kids, grown as well.

Dad 2013

Three of our four parents survive. My dad is the youngest at 85. Her dad, the oldest at 89. Her mom in the middle. Various degrees of decline are present in all, some days tolerable; others? Not so much. It’s difficult to know what will bring on a bad spell during which time on the clock and in the body might differ by 12 hours. An evening phone call will be answered with, “Good morning.” News previously delivered will be sought again, heard as brand new until quickly forgotten. Then something clicks and for a while things become nearly normal. The brand of normal offered at this stage.

I'll take it. The nearly normal. The pretend normal. The normal without a minor or major catastrophe for an hour.

I remember something Elisabeth Kubler-Röss said many years ago in a small “On Death & Dying” workshop. “Every loss we experience, right down to a contact lens, is preparation for the greatest loss to come. Laying down our own lives.”

Each day I sit with him I witness my dad set down a tiny piece of his life.

Dad 1945

Today was my friend’s turn to cry. Echoing the tears and overwhelm she’s heard from me too often, she said, “I don’t know how to do this, Pammy.”

I don’t know how to do this either and yet we do it, whatever it is. We say good-bye daily, cell by cell, watching parents struggle to be who they once were. Wondering if they understand they aren't, if we understand where they might be.

I don’t know how to do this.

But in all the not knowing I’ve identified four present, separate silos of sorrow that live within me and that I heard in my friend’s sadness.

1) Loss, of parents, and the history we share
2) Anguish, frustration and worry about ‘getting it right’, ‘doing it right’, – eldercare and self care – figuring out what helps and what doesn’t while mourning present losses and preparing for those to come
3) Wondering how bad it will get before it’s over – is this the beginning, middle or end of a process of leaving life?
4) Fearfulness – what awaits me in old age? What’s in my control and what isn’t no matter how well I plan or care for myself? Who will be the me for me?

The labeling doesn’t change a thing but I’m helped as I see it listed. It’s a tall order. If someone I loved was dealing with all of this I’d want them to make distinctions between control and influence, and I'd encourage letting go of what’s beyond impact.

I’d tell a friend to be gentle with himself, tender and loving, and while he might consider or plan for tomorrow, in the end, as the saying goes, “God laughs”. I’d ask him not to spend too much time hanging out in the future, as though it were predictable.

But I've had such a difficult time doing those things for myself. Especially the letting go.

Dad & Brother

Though I told friends who asked me to write about my experience of giving elder and hospice care I would not do so, here I am. I may have some stored nuggets I didn’t realize were there. In talking to my dear and long-time pal I found words surfaced easily. The list with the labels emerged like it was already written.

I may ease back into writing with a couple of blog entries about my recent journey. I don’t know that it's helpful. I hope that attaching words to feelings may be a contribution to some. In the process perhaps I'll come to appreciate what I've learned.

I dedicate this to everyone doing this important work in a country that doesn’t do it well (would prefer to shun age completely), gives far too little help, and almost no guidance.

We don’t know how to do this. And we’re doing it anyway.

Reblog ~ "Extreme Forgiveness"

Some stories nearly tell themselves. We can be lulled into thinking that a teller need only assemble a few words so they can pass a good one along.  

Wrong.

A story that nearly tells itself needs a deft touch, a light hand; a few stitches to knit it together, a flashlight to highlight the required areas, then a speedy getaway so the story teller doesn’t get in the way. She leaves the benefit of the tale to its reader without distraction or interference. 

That isn't easy.

This is an exquisite story about life, what it asks of some of us – almost too much to bear, and then even more. For me, someone naturally inclined to observe and ponder human nature, I easily felt the grip of this narrative.

The author who penned this blog entry says of herself, “I am a convergent media artist, photographer, author, blogger and joyful student of life.” 

Her self-description shows in this lovely piece.

I hope you enjoy it as I did. If so, spend some time with the author, Joyce Wycoff, at http://joycewycoff.blogspot.com and send her a note. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. 

Below Joyce's artwork is a link to "Extreme Forgiveness," on her blog. 

"Crack in the World"

Extreme Forgiveness

by Joyce Wycoff

Baseball Like Life

Those of you who’ve known me for a while know this story. Even if I’ve never told you directly, you know it because it’s in my skin. I wear it. I live it.

I tell it now because for me it explains baseball at its essence. And why when baseball goes away I feel adrift, no land in sight. I have to get my compass and reorient to north, to life. My heart is tied to baseball.

On October 9, 1979 I bore my first child after a difficult pregnancy that I didn’t know was difficult. I thought it was normal. Because I hadn’t traveled the road before. Millions of women had gone before me without whining, and I didn't want to be a baby. I said little. I just waited for my infant girl.

She came. Just at the moment I had a seizure followed by a cardiac event and a weeklong coma. I know these things because others told me when I awakened.

“My baby? Where’s my baby?”

She had died and I didn’t meet her. Never saw her.

It was a long time before I could inhale without doubling in pain. I was too young to know that life would march on and would hold highs in proportion to its lows.

It took a while to recover. Much time before I wanted to rejoin life. Even after Boy was born and I was ecstatic; it was in some ways more difficult to have missed Girl's short stay, I came to realize, as I played with his tiny toes.

I became accustomed to her leaving. It happened slowly. I almost didn’t notice that I didn’t think about her several times a day. But it was a nearly impossible climb into the reality that she never laid nestled in my arms.

Not once.

Will Clark ~ Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

On her tenth birthday, October 9^th, 1989, I was at Candlestick Park, a spectator as the San Francisco Giants beat the Chicago Cubs to win the National League pennant for the first time since 1962. 

Sitting in the upper deck with a high blue baseball sky above me while the gods anointed my team as representatives to the World Series. Caps flew into the air as the radio broadcast was routed through the Sony Jumbotron screen and we heard Hank Greenwald shout, “27 years of waiting is over. The Giants have won the pennant.” My husband and I lifted our eight-year-old son onto his seat where he could stand for a better view of the hugging, yelling, jumping players in a dog pile on the pitcher’s mound.

They had done it. We had done it. Different victories, similarly sweet.

We had stood huddled beneath a temporary canopy to shield us from the pouring rain the day we buried Girl. Her small white casket lowered in the ground, a lambs wool bear tucked inside. We did not know what lay ahead for us. I didn’t think I'd again hear the sound of my own raucous laughter. Would breathe freely, tickled by the air.

Yet there I was, ten years later, my little family including a son I didn't know was waiting for me, jumping in unison with the team from our perch in the stands. We sang “Bye-Bye Baby,” wore team colors, and cheered till we were hoarse.

I didn’t need to look back on that day to see its irony, its metaphor. In the moment I stepped away from myself and watched it unfold; I wished Girl a silent happy birthday.

Life moves on, even when we’d give anything if it would only stop.

Bay Bridge Collapse ~ George Nikitin, Associated Pres

Baseball, like life, holds many surprises. Some of them leveling while others shoot us to the moon. A few days later an earthquake rocked the 1989 World Series; while there were deaths outside, Candlestick Park held baseball fans safely in her arms. 62,000 of us were defended by the old concrete lady. As she shook she grumbled, “I don’t care if you think I’m ugly, I’ll protect you anyway.” That she did. She didn’t tell us the City was on fire or a bridge to our north had collapsed. She didn't give a hint.

Baseball sent scores home from work early, avoiding peak commute at 5:04PM when the earth moved and there would no doubt have been more casualties. Fans had already taken their places on the sofa by the television while they awaited the game’s first pitch. Folks watched baseball, and baseball watched out for them.

Baseball. Life. One a microcosm of the other. 

Tomorrow a parade in San Francisco to celebrate the 2012 World Series win of the San Francisco Giants. An orange and black barrage of wildly enthusiastic Bay Area residents ready for pandemonium after a season of blows that spurred a tornado of wins and ended in a sweep of the opponent. Our baseball team had blown right back.

Then, the temperature will drop and days will grow short; baseball will fade into dormancy. From chaotic celebration to rest, reorganization, and preparation. From a hurricane to a quiet day with no news to report. Other pursuits and events will fill the void. Don’t know what those will be, what the future holds.

Inning to inning, day-to-day, life and baseball play out in flukes, serendipitous twists. We hold on through the bad breaks, savor a ball that sails out of the yard, hang in when a star player goes down, and when our spirits are as wreckage on the rocks.

Life keeps us in wonder even on its hardest days.

Baseball Annie Savoy

"I believe in the Church of Baseball."* Even when it seems my team doesn’t have a chance, or I don't, I know there's hope.  An unexpected turnaround. A rally. A win. A cheer. 

An alleluia.

Life's like that. That’s why you shouldn't leave the game early. Not till the last out. You just don’t know what lies ahead.

* Quote from Baseball Annie Savoy, "Bull Durham". With thanks to bleacherreport.com for the photo.

Epilogue - The Final Out

Brandon Crawford and Hunter Pence hug Marco Scutaro on his first trip to the World Series
REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson 

The downpour could not dampen the moment for the San Francisco Giants or their fans. 

Congratulations, National League champs. 

To the St. Louis Cardinals, well done! A relentless opponent who made an improbable drive to the NLCS with a field riddled with injuries. Mighty Cardinals, see you in the 2013 post-season, as we do nearly every year.

And no matter what's written by the so-called pros (I've read it already this morning), it wasn't a "run up" score aimed to embarrass. There are never enough insurance runs against the Cards. 

Sergio Romo records last out
ASSOCIATED PRESS

If you don't believe me, just ask the Washington Nationals.

Marco Scutaro, Most Valuable Player
2012 NLCS
REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

17 Happiest Photos of the Giants Winning the Pennant

Dog Fight

Dog fight at 5:07PM PDT.

Two historic, storied franchises, Musial versus Mays, set to duke it out old school in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. A rubber match of sorts. 1987 to the Cards, 2002 to the Giants. 2012?

Who will it be tonight?

I’m a Giants fan granted the thrill of a World Series win just two years ago. Still on a high from the first San Francisco win. But I’m a baseball fan, too, and those are different things.

The Giants fan wants black and orange to prevail. The baseball fan wants a clean game, no questionable calls, no errors, a fair fight and a solid feeling that the best team won.

My Giants fan wants Marco Scutaro to tear the cover off the ball so Matt Holliday knows never to try a late slide take-out hit at second base when he plays my boys; Pam the baseball fan knows it’s part of the game and the baseball gods generally even the score without human intervention.

I want to see outstanding play and know I’m watching the best that the best can deliver out of both dugouts; I also want my team to be just a little bit better.

My baseball fan and Giants fan watch together in stunned admiration of the team that won three championship road games in a row to rally from the brink of elimination in the division play-off.

And here we are tonight. Two teams that evenly split wins during their regular season meet-ups. The St. Louis Cardinals, a team built to clobber every other with outstanding hitting and a filthy bullpen loaded with 100mph flame-throwers.

My Giants? Can’t categorize them and have it hold from one night to the next. They’re up, they’re down, as soon as one pitcher finds his mojo, another goes MIA. They’ve defied description in the best and worst ways leading the league with errors in the early season, turning it around with a shortstop holding the best defensive record in baseball. They’ve thrilled fans with MVP play, then sucker-punched them with a crowd favorite suspended for PED use.

My baseball fan knows the San Francisco Giants aren’t supposed to be here tonight. Their closer placed on the DL early in the season went without replacement. The league leader in hits was bounced from the team. Their All-Star catcher, recovering from a near career-ending injury, took off with a slow start. Their award-winning pitcher had an ERA above 5 till the last week of the season, and another All-Star position player spent half the season disabled in two separate stints on the DL.

For the sixth game this post-season, the Giants are on the cusp of elimination. Or maybe, this time, a trip to the World Series. Only 50 times in the history of baseball has a championship series needed all seven games. 50.

For a baseball fan, it doesn’t get better than this. A game of games where both teams are literally playing for their seasonal lives. 162 games, plus five divisional play-off games and six league championship games have been reduced to tonight. A slow, plodding progression over six months ends and begins with a one game frenzy to see who lives and who dies.

We are an hour from the first pitch of the last game that determines who moves on to baseball’s last rung. Two evenly matched pitchers will meet on the field of play. My Giants fan’s throat aches from life on the edge, endless cheering, and shoving my heart back down into place. My baseball fan knows it’s a privilege to see such a match, even greater because my hometown team is a participant.

Tomorrow morning one team will have been victorious, will be shaking off a champagne shower, wearing a World Series cap, and doing a light work-out in prep for game one of the World Series. Their fans will be arranging schedules to attend or watch televised games wearing bright new championship t-shirts; one team will empty lockers as their fans count days till pitchers and catchers report to spring training. 

Cardinals Red? Giants black and orange? In which group of fans will I be? Either way, what a ride, what a ride.

It’s baseball. And I’m reminded of a Rogers Hornsby quote. Win or lose, my baseball fan completely understands. 

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

Photo credits to Huffington Post, Sports Illustrated, Getty Images

All In For Bay Area October

Halloween this month. Should I begin, “It was a dark and stormy night…”?

I’d be lyin’ if I did. It’s 94 degrees outside. I checked on my electronic digital meat thermometer.

That’s the truth. About the 94, and the thermometer. It's the only one I have. 

Thanks, Joce!

Those familiar with the Bay Area know fog fades this time of year, beat back to sea by a high pressure ridge that allows La Cité, Peninsula and North Bay temps to soar. Not in mid summer as in other places.

In July and August our inland valleys heat up and draw fog to the coastal cities of northern California. There the wispy fluff hugs and hovers; Mark Twain is often erroneously credited for the thing he never said about the coldest winter he ever spent...

That’s why you bring your sweatshirt when you visit San Francisco in summer, right? Oh, you didn’t? Then you bought yours at Fisherman’s Wharf.

San Francisco awaits the tourist exit. It saves its best for locals who then stroll sleeveless late into evening, every moment of warmth absorbed and stored as a morsel in memory, like squirrels and the acorns they hide to make it through the winter. Fall is our time with windows wide open. Coffee and a pastry at a sidewalk cafe. This is a day at the beach. For real.       

Heat is our sign of autumn. Our version of northeastern leaves showing color. Heat is the last glorious gasp before rain and chill set in, and Halloween comes a knockin'.

As a kid hot weather met us as we returned to school in September. I sat at my desk wriggling in the seat as I attempted to listen attentively in Mrs. Goggins’ science class. Afternoons with temps close to the century mark, the back of my legs itching and sweating in a wool, plaid, pleated Catholic school skirt. It was difficult to be still, checking the clock and waiting to escape the hot and airless classroom. In a rush to shed the stiff school uniform and get to the five & dime to find a Halloween costume.

By October 31st the weather shifts. Predictable cold and drizzle threaten to dampen festivities. Parents argue with kids over how to keep warm and dry. Nothing like a jacket or raincoat to ruin a costume's fun.

In this heat it’s hard to imagine that conversation lies less than 30 days ahead. But it never fails.

Yesterday, when it was 97 degrees, I contemplated foregoing Halloween hubbub. Admittedly it’s early to begin the annual search for orange squash with jack-o-lantern potential but a hectic schedule threatened to squeeze the fun out of October till late in the month, maybe even too late. Not worth the trouble for only a few days, a week at the most. That’s what I said to myself. Yesterday.

Perhaps 2012 was designated somewhere as the year to skip Halloween hijinks.

I live on a winding street that climbs a hill overlooking a canyon. Street lamps are few. Sidewalks none. The paved road is narrow and though the speed limit is 20mph to safely accommodate pedestrians sharing it, not everyone abides. Night brings critters. It's poor trick or treat territory.

But we justify a candy purchase by telling ourselves someone may knock and we don't want to be the house that spoils the fun. Just in case, that’s what the hubs and I say while buying a sack of our favorite treats.

Then five years ago a baby was born next door. He easily became our neighborhood’s child. Drew us all in and each October I would see his mother push his stroller to two houses displaying a few decorations. One across the street with a blow up witch sitting on the red brick steps, toes curled upward, striped witch's socks. Then they’d roll to our house with my pile of pumpkins and glowing lights.

A whole new haunting Halloween spin on things with the arrival of that boy. As he grew he began to walk with his mother, hand in hand after his nap, to visit the witch and sit next to it on the steps. I added to our collection enthusiastically. More ghoulish fun. A skull with light up eyes. An animated Grim Reaper.

No mystery why the houses next to his have the most decorations. We're tickled by his delight.

Now he runs here on his own, within Mom’s watching range, to check that we’re appropriately festooned for fall. Monitoring our progress.

A month ago he became a big brother. Last evening with windows open to the hot, still night I could hear the infant's cry. In the season when life prepares for the dormancy of winter, to pull back and hunker down, I'm reminded that in some places life is new. I'm renewed as well.

The sound of life. I couldn’t help myself. I rethought my original plan. For our neighborhood's child, Halloween will visit my house. For his baby brother, too, who will pass fast asleep in a buggy. 

In big brother’s smile I'm reminded that rituals and novelty are cookies and milk, should never be separated or ever skipped. 

I climb a ladder to string peeking, peeping, blinking, spooky eyes around a tree, no longer remembering that yesterday I thought to do otherwise.

The sun shines brightly without a hint of dark and stormy night though one will doubtless visit soon. If you’re fortunate enough to be here today you can shed that fleece for a while.

This is autumn in the Bay Area. As it is every year dating back to my childhood and long before me.

Nearby is one little boy and his new baby brother soaking up October. While they go about the work of being children I'm reminded to play. 

Some things are too good to take a pass on. Like warm and sunny fall.

Hello, October. We meet again. And I'm all in.