Nobody Remembers, To Clean Out the File Cabinet…and Other Thoughts on Best Freinds

Nobody Remembers

I don’t remember the historian that said this…but this guy on C-Span said that the historians of the future are going to have a really hard time trying to figure out history. One of the reasons we know so much about our founders, he said… is that they kept their letters.  Sometimes, even on a particular day, you could find out even if it rained. Jefferson wrote to Adams, Adams wrote to Abigail, Adams wrote to Jefferson, and the whole family kept dairies…George wrote to everybody…and they all wrote to each other.

When email came along, those of us who love to write were ecstatic—Wow…FREE mail! And we could get an instant reply! When it first came out…you did.

Then Twitter hit, and we are regulated to just “tweets” of our thoughts, which are being stored in the deep bowels of some building somewhere for who knows what purpose…and the letter writers of yesterday, are now bloggers

But for history’s sake, Nobody anymore keeps emails. If they do, they pile up in some cloud somewhere simply because the cost of ink and paper has gone up so much, it’s impractical. But— once upon a time—in a galaxy not too long ago…

I printed out my emails. I know…WHY?

As I sit at my computer, right next to me is my 4- drawer file cabinet. I haven’t opened it in ten years…nope..although its stuffed with what I once considered, very important printouts from my computer…now you SAVE everything onto something…anything but paper.

And I’ve decided to open those drawers once and for all, and clean them out.

I’m…a fool. BECAUSE…every drawer contains about 35 folders stocked full of papers, and I started out thinking: Okay, piece of cake. I’m just going to flick through this, and get it all done today.

Ha.

So, I opened up the top drawer…got to the first folder, and the heading said: Emails. I started reading…and low and behold, I found out so many things I had forgotten, I just had to write THEM down. I found out the year I got our first BIGSCREEN TV: The year our heater and air conditioner broke at the same time and we had to cancel our trip to Florida to pay for new units: my son’s first job: The time my son had a party and someone puked into the hot tub and “mom ” had to drain it and clean it up the next day: The day First Lady Laura Bush’s secretary actually called me to ‘apologize’ for not answering my letter: The morning our old station wagon died and how we went out and bought our first Santa Fe that very night (with a light in the glove box that has never gone off.)

In other words…I found my history.

And so…in remembrance of our lives (I’m figuring mine is pretty normal) here’s a few paragraphs from some of the emails I sent to my friend Janet, who lives in Florida:

The Family Gets the FLU…

Jan 4, 2001

We were &$*% sick the whole holidays with a horrible, insidious stomach flu. The kind where you throw up everything you’ve eaten in the last two years, and then your vagina comes out. That’s after lying in bed for two days waiting to throw up. And freezing. Then a lull where you try to lie very still, and you eat a cup of Jell-O and then you are on the John for 6 hours, and if not for the TV and books in the bathroom you would go out of your &$%ing  mind. Of course— I got it the worst, while I was cooking Christmas dinner and smelling food, my son gets it and starts crying he feels so bad, after complaining about throwing up— his teeth chattering from the cold, and I have to nurse him while my husband is downstairs throwing up and I’m praying that my mother doesn’t get it because it will kill her, and sure enough she gets it, but makes me feel worse because she just had it for one day, while I suffered a week. Her eyesight is better, her memory is better—god damn it. So, we had a real Merry Fucking Christmas.

May 19, 2001:The FIRST…my ‘opinion; on the Kentucky Derby:…To Janet….

The Saudi’s Get Revenge

 Hey, did you watch the Preakness today? How about this…Point Return, the horse favored to win the Kentucky Derby, who is owned by a Saudi Arabian Prince lost to an American Horse named Marocos (sp) owned by a Tulsa Oilman. Mysteriously, right after the race, 500 mares in Kentucky, mostly the expensive racing ones, came down with a disease due to the grass. $253 million dollars in losses from this. So Today…Point Return comes in first and Marocos…dead last. Coincidence? Are we just a little scared?  Nothing like a little horse biological weapon to get the point across I’d say. Yeah, I know, You think I’m crazy . But, I say, follow the money.

Both our Mothers Die in the Same Year….

July 23, 2001–And another…Janet’s mother and my mother died the same year, 2001. Her mother went in her sleep. Mine, wasn’t so lucky.

Mom had a major stroke, and I have been at the hospital day and night. She went in with a stroke and we had one nightmare experience after another. We found out days later that she also had a collapsed lung, then she got a bladder infection, then pneumonia, then her feeding tube came out, and she couldn’t be fed or get her medications for days, and today she had a feeding tube put into her stomach to be feed that way and the hospital she’s in has been hell, because they claimed she was brain-dead, while all the time she was talking to us, and we wanted her rehabilitated while they wanted her out. It had been hell and we have had to raise hell with the doctors, and nurses. Just today, after he operation the nurse told us, that not only was the food from her feeding tube– not going into her stomach, but they don’t know where it went. But to them from her pneumonia nothing was being suctioned out. And mom has slowly been losing her ability to speak, she is parlayized on one side and as if that wasn’t enough, her blood pressure goes up and down like a yo-yo. She now doesn’t remember where she lives but she told me she loved me tonight after not speaking for days. …

October 29, 2001—More…I am taking care of my mother at home. Janet…

Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve had to write you a note…mom is sleeping and she doesn’t do that often. How are you doing? My life has been a nightmare since mom had her stroke of Friday the 13th…July. She was in the hospital for 5 weeks, then home for a while, then back for another week. She now has a j-tube through her g-tube and I’m praying the food stays down. Sometimes she know who I am, but mostly she just calls for me…I’m ‘mother.’ I’ve watched her suffer so much Janet and have been appalled at the medical attention she has gotten. In all, the hospital has made 9 life threatening mistakes, and even though we are out, they must be afraid of a lawsuit because they call every day to see how she is. I can’t believe she is alive, I can’t believe I have survived taking care of her. Mom had diarrhea for two months straight and I had a home nurse who wouldn’t change diapers. The poor thing stared vomiting badly and lucky I was there or she would choke on her own vomit.

Here’s what Janet wrote back:

Take care of yourself: We all have to live one day at a time now and be thankful for what we have and for the people we love and those that love us. Its all we can really hope for in life I think.

And THAT is why…I save my emails….my friends are incredible and extraordinary human beings. Janet’s advice is eternal. Life it tough…and the BEST thing you can have at your side is a true friend.  

I think I’m going to need another file cabinet.

January 10, 2013 Posted by Joyanna Adams | American History, Life, Uncategorized | History, life | 2 Comments