What are the things that shape a life? Numero Uno. We need to feel safe, secure, and loved. I had two parents who survived hardship during the Depression and WWII so they were totally focused on providing that for themselves and me, their only child. I had cousins who were not so lucky in that department and endured abuse and alcoholism. We need role models to show us the way to kindness and civility, and how to live a moral and ethical life. I lucked out there too. We need role models to show us the way to kindness and civility, and how to live a moral and ethical life. I lucked out there too. We need a sense of purpose. My Mom provided that when I was just two years old and she ‘went back to work’ as a hairdresser and worked until Alzheimer’s forced her to stop at 67. None of the other mothers I knew worked in the 1950s. My Dad was a very handsome and reliable mailman after trying to make it in that newly developing field of TV Repair. TV repair was not for him. Not stablecenough. My parents thought that I should have some grounding in a spiritual life so I was baptized and confirmed
at the local Methodist church. I never once heard the word God uttered at home. They sent me to both day camp and sleepaway camp because they were working. Fine with me. It was fun and a skinny guy named Fred gave me my first kiss. There I also first felt a connection to the larger web of life. I was 12 and sitting on wooden slat pew in an outdoor chapel among the tall trees at a YMCA Camp in northwestern Connecticut. Later when I was 16 my mother took her intellectually precocious teenager to our closest Unitarian Church in White Plains, N.Y. where my mind as well as my spirit might be fed. Now I was becoming a full-fledged baby boomer with a restless curiosity and those UU services stretched the definition of spirit for me into one that included a community. Mom made sure I could take art and music classes. She knew that a woman does not live by bread alone. Between high school and college I toured Europe for 6 weeks as a flutist and part of a Woodwind Ensemble. And when I told my parents after two years at the Univ. of Buffalo that I wanted to go to Parsons School of Design in NYC, they were totally supportive and made sure that I never needed to take out a student loan. I waited tables for
years during high school and college. When I met my husband John in my senior year of Parsons and my parents learned he was 15 years older than I, divorced, and had two young children, well, that was a bridge too far. It took those 9 years to be okay with my choice. He was a good man, a wonderful artist and designer, a good dad, 7 a loving husband. I had an exciting, demanding, and very stressful life in corporate interior design in NYC so by the time I was 40, and after 8 years of fertility testing, (In-Vitro was a new treatment but had a low chance of success then) we decided, okay that’s it, we’re done with that. Let’s retire instead! We had exactly one great year of goofing off and painting after moving to Santa Fe, NM before we learned my mom was beginning the Long Goodbye that is Alzheimer’s. I enjoyed a few more years of design work in NM and then my dad followed mom down the same path. We moved them west and saw them both through another 9 years of decline. Hiking in the mountains kept me sane then. It still does. After they passed we had one year of normalcy again before John also showed signs of memory loss at 72. That was one too many curveballs for me. Between menopause and caregiving I was a complete wreck but tried to keep top of mind that I was one of the lucky ones, all things
considered. We had tried going to the Santa Fe UU from time to time but I found more solace joining the meditation and Dharma talks at the Upaya Zen Center. On one of our occasional month-long visits to Ajijic in 2008, we found the Lake Chapala UU Fellowship when there were about 50 members sharing space with the Jewish congregation. I knew then we could move here and find our community and we did so in 2010. These were difficult years but we found friends who allowed John to retain his dignity as long as possible. He died almost 9 years ago and for the following two years I felt the warm cocoon that UU is when someone is in need of support and I am forever grateful for that. And now if you also find yourself also taking the journey through dementia with a loved one and need someone to listen, to bounce ideas off, to rant or cry or scream into the dark, well just send me a note. Hopefully I will still have all my marbles. Having married an older guy I had thought that I would likely have many years as a widow which was exactly why my parents had discouraged our relationship but–No Regrets here. We had a great run. I sold my house and was preparing to move into an apartment here when my neighbor of 9 years, Jim Bellamy, asked me to lunch. He had lost his wife Fran some months before and was completely despondent. He wanted advice about what he had to do to sell his house in Mexico and go back to Canada. So an old story then replayed itself—the widow and widower get together….And then on March 4, 2018, Rev. Matt performed the first wedding held at LCUUF. We followed up with a ‘legal’ one that summer in New Mexico. Jim and I decided to move back to Santa Fe together as the pandemic hit the world and it will be our home base now but we will look forward to visiting Lakeside in the future again. For now we are so grateful to be able to join you all on Zoom most Sundays and so—Thanks again to Matt and all the volunteers that continue to make that happen. Thank you all for being part of this wonderful fellowship.