Halloween

Flashback:

It is October 31, 1958, and I am dressed in my brothers khaki civil air patrol suit, to pose as a soldier for Halloween. I go around the neighborhood with two friends, since our parents feel that 9 year olds are old enough not to need adult supervision. The weather is nice (I am warm enough with a sweater under my costume), and we wander father through the streets of the neighborhood than we ever have before. At one house, the woman invites us in and gives us warm caramel apples. We eat them as we start heading for home. It is the most delicious Halloween treat ever. I marvel that someone went to so much trouble for the trick or treaters. It was a wonderful Halloween.

Flash forward:

It is October 31, 2009, and I awake from a nightmare at 5:00 am.

In the nightmare, we are at a convention. I have lost track of my husband John. He had gotten annoyed when I snapped at him about something inane, and wandered off with an attractive single friend. I am feeling annoyed and jealous and I want to find him. I wander into the front of an auditorium where a program is about to begin, to look for them. The room swims, and my legs ache. I sit on the steps in the front of the crowded auditorium, and a South American dictator enters. Security is tight. I feel nervous, but I notice that my friend Alice, whom I have known since high school, is sitting nearby. I innocently take notes on the program as some children from the South American country testify as to the wonderful medical care they have received. A woman with her hair pulled back tightly in a bun, a military uniform, and a small white earpiece with a white wire in her ear confiscates my notes. I feel afraid and look for my friend Alice, but she has left. I want to leave, but I am afraid to because I move so awkwardly, that I am afraid I will attract attention trying to rise from the steps and exit. I awaken with a start.

I lie there quietly, not wanting to awaken John. If it were a weekday, I would get up, but it is Shabbat, and I am hoping he will awaken and turn to me. I especially don't want to awaken John because I had already kept him awake enough this week. Tuesday, I was cranky when I came home from a day trip with my club. The facilitator decided that a slow luxurious lunch, such as we usually have with these trips, would be a waste of time because we were going to a museum with a lot to see. But after wandering the museum for hours (even though I used my travel cane to lean on) my legs ached and I was exhausted. I felt annoyed that women older than me had a lot more energy for roaming the museum, and no one else used a cane. A woman I did not know had sat next to me on the bus, and talked to me about how she missed her busy life as a state legislator now that she had retired. Without planning to, I tell her that I used to miss my job, but now that my memory is slipping, I have so much trouble just getting through the day that I no long miss it. Then I am annoyed at myself for revealing something so personal, and annoyed even more that this is true. So, I snap at John that evening.

Then, later in the week, I go to the Temple Sisterhood dinner. I sit with friends and enjoy myself, until it is over. Then, exhausted, I get up to leave, and notice that everyone else is bustling around helping with the clean up. I walk out with a woman in her nineties, who seems to be the only other completely exhausted person in the room (it is only 8:00 pm). That night, when John gets up to use the bathroom, I sit up in bed and say "Damn it, Damn it, Damn it!". I punch the pillow in anger. He asks me what is wrong, and I tell him how angry I am at having been exhausted and not able to bustle around like the others. He tries to comfort me, but I am wound up. I decide to go watch TV downstairs, so he can go back to sleep.

The next morning I report to him that I am calm. I spend the morning cooking Shabbat dinner (bread in the bread machine, haricots vert with roasted peppers and onions, and casserole of turkey, mushrooms, onion and barley). I get lost in the tasks and forget my problems. As I cook, the pleasant young woman who cleans for us cleans upstairs. When she comes down, I have not quite finished cooking and we chit chat about Halloween costumes and what I am cooking. She has never heard of barley, and I show her the grain.

By Shabbat morning I am feeling rested, and I decide that if John is not up by 6:00, I will get up. I doze off again, and then John is awake. I tell him my dream, and he comforts me, knowing that I am oddly anxious about him being with other women. I read that this itself is a symptom of Parkinson's Disease. He soothes me, and age and time are now meaningless concepts. Before we rise, he says he will turn on the news, to see if the world is still there.

We have a good day. While I cook French Toast, John sends our son-in-law a Happy Birthday message. I prepare Turkey a la king for dinner. With my sister, we go to services, and rise for the mourner's kaddish because it is my father's yartzheit. We stop for lunch with my sister at a local pizza shop, and then she goes off and John and I go to Real Art Ways, a Hartford Arts and Cinema venue. We see a French film that we had seen in Paris two years ago. We are delighted with the scenes of Paris, and we love the film again.

We stop to buy pretzels for Halloween treats, and watch "The Cat Women", and "The Return of the Cat Women" as we eat our suppers and hand out the treats. By 8:00 the treats have all been distributed, and the street is quiet. We turn out the lights.

I check facebook and find happy messages from the kids. Our son-in-law enjoyed his birthday, and compliments our daughter on the delicious dinner she cooked. Our daughter has commented on the Halloween costumes of the neighborhood kids who are dressed like popular children's entertainers. Our daughter-in-law chimes in because she knows about all of the popular kids' entertainers from our five year old granddaughter. Our daughter-in-law has also posted a reminder that this is the tenth anniversary of their first date, and my son responds happily and mentions that he has posted their first date picture. I remember that our son had come home for our 50th birthday Halloween costume party, and had borrowed the car the next day to drive to Boston. At 9:39 my daughter calls to report on the day's events and that her baby twins looked cute in their costumes but didn't like them. She tells me that she has posted to my Facebook wall that she is glad I am her Mom, and to John's wall that she is glad he is her Dad. I tell her that I too am glad I am her Mom, and marvel that she would go to the trouble to make these posts.

I am warmed by memories of my father, and the Halloweens when he marched through the neighborhood with me. I feel contented by the nice day I have had, and happy to know that the kids and grandkids all had a nice day too. It was a wonderful Halloween.