Carole P. Roman : July 2018

Monday, July 30, 2018

Babies make us slow down by Carole P. Roman

Babies make us slow down
by Carole P. Roman
Originally published on medium.com |
https://medium.com/@caroleproman/babies-make-us-slow-down-868a98c90346

Picture taken by Brittney Bass

Today I spoke to my radio show producer, I commented that I noticed a new quality in her voice.

It was softer, slower as if she was savoring each minute. She paused for a second and asked what did I mean? I explained that I knew she had just become a grandmother and it showed.

Her voice had a lazy quality that it had never had before. I explained my theory. I felt that having a grandchild had put the brakes on her busy life and she was learning to slow down without even realizing.

She laughed out loud and said it was ironic. She recently admitted work had become not only tedious but overwhelming and hired an assistant to help her multitask. For the first time in her life, she was delegating her assignments out.

“Yes, I know,” I agreed. “You have more important things to do now.”
My entire married life felt as though it existed on a superhighway. It ramped up when we started our family.

I had to work, take care of the house and my kids at breakneck speed. Our business is seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day, so issues came at us fast and furiously. With a high profile clientele, problems must be addressed the minute you become aware of them. As a result, I rush everything else in my life.

Sleep was only for the exhausted. Laundry was a living thing that multiplied like an alien organism. Household appliances broke; faucets leaked, and interminable cable adjustments were massive time suckers. Then you entered the purgatory of waiting for repair people who had a looser interpretation of a four-hour window.

I hated Science Fair with a vengeance, gritted my teeth when I had to help with spelling or math, and I remember watching my kid drain his bottle while I glanced impatiently at the pile of reports waiting on my desk.

Dinner was never peaceful. It was a mad dash to finish so I could get to new assignments that were piling up like a blizzard. The pressure was on because waiting in the wings was that book report that included at hurried trip for the stupid construction paper I bought in bulk and then could never find.

As my business grew, I learned to give projects to my growing staff.

It was with great relief I handed off home and school responsibilities to my kids as they matured and could handle things for themselves.

Most parts of my early married life are not filled with rosy memories. When I look back through the lens of time, it a colorful mash of a kaleidoscope, indistinct and blurred.

Then we had grandchildren and everything suddenly slowed as if caught in a pool of molasses. The rush simply ended.

I can gaze for hours at one of my grandchildren chewing, their chipmunk cheeks filled, their eyes pleading with me to intervene on their behalf to allow them to spit out their half-eaten broccoli.

How about waiting for those chunky arms to pull themselves up and reach for you?

Hours melt when you watch dimpled hands squeeze a banana into submission, or pile all 1,002 blocks onto the carpet before the rest of Mommy’s company arrives.

The timbre of our voices change. I think we laugh more. I might be late for my next meeting because I’ve had the realization that we can all wait until I find the latest picture of my brood. Not that one, the one buried in my photos that I insist you must see. Well, at least I’m not making them wait while I search for Waldo. I do that one only when we are at home.

We don’t mind reading that same story another time. It’s just as funny the fourteenth time as it was the first.

Saying goodbye take longer too. We run back for more hugs and kisses despite the waiting uber or spouse.

Time ceases to be important because when you are a grandparent. You understand you better slow down and enjoy it. It’s when you realize you need to savor those moments because they don’t last forever, and guess what… neither do you.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

It’s the little things Originally posted on Medium.com by Carole P. Roman

It’s the little things

Originally posted on Medium.com by Carole P. Roman

Just when you think you’re going to be okay, you find an ashtray with a half-smoked cigar buried in his workplace in the basement.

We cleaned out the cellar today. It was one of those things we put off for six months. I rushed with his stuff in the house. I couldn’t look another minute at anything related to his COPD. The medicines, oxygen, and walker were the first to go. I shoved them out the door, along with the clothes he wore after he gave up living- those oversized jogging pants instead of sexy jeans he used to wear.

His shoes were the hardest to pack up. He valued a good leather shoe and had more of them than Carrie Bradshaw. In fact, he was the one who introduced me to designer footwear and started a life-long obsession over forty years ago.

He was reduced to non-skid sneakers, clunky and ugly, clumsy and unrefined.

He was so elegant when we were young, handsome, and smart. He knew about really cool things and had a thirst to learn his entire life. Together, we made everything in our lives, from our home to how we lived, better. He was a believer in experiencing everything the world had to offer, learning the best of everybody’s culture. He loved trying new foods or going on exploratory rides where we would look at homes and imagine other people’s lives then guess what they did for a living.

He was so much fun, my husband. His eyes would light up with excitement or mischief. Make no mistake, he was a trouble-maker of epic proportions. He’d find a chink in someone’s armor and then go for it, just to watch a person squirm. He loved discovering what was important to them, and then find a challenge to see how they would defend it. While it wasn’t a favorite memory when it comes to my spouse, I discovered a lot about both him and myself with the outcomes of those encounters. I learned what was important enough for me to go balls to the wall, and more than that, he found our boundaries.

He did prepare me for this time. We talked about it literally to death, and while I think I’ve done okay, it boggles me that the stump of a dried out cigar can send me right back to that place. I want to run upstairs and hide under the covers to pretend the last twelve years didn’t happen.

I should hate that damn cigar. It was lung cancer that started the whole thing, after all. But somehow I don’t. When we found it, my heart did a little flip, and my voice quavered. My eyes filled, and while I was able to clear my throat and turn my face away, that cigar reminded me how much I miss him. He enjoyed the rich chocolate taste, sitting outside, inhaling the flavor of his smoke as it wreathed around his face. The cigar represented his freedom or the last vestiges of it as his life and health disintegrated around him.

We did refuse to buy them, at first, but he found ways around us. For a man who didn’t know what Facebook or Gmail was, he learned to order online.

The fact that he beat cancer twelve years ago, but was sidelined with COPD angered him. I think in the end, he didn’t care anymore and wanted to find pleasure where he could. He was afraid of the end, not dying, the other end. That horrible place where he might linger and could no longer exist without the aid of a machine.

When we’d talk about smoking, he’d shrug and say, it really didn’t matter anymore. The damage was done, and that was the one enjoyment he had left.

I think that cigar became part of his identity. Just a whiff of smoke paralyzes me now. Walking into the lottery store with its giant humidor in the rear leaves me forlorn and empty.

Who would think that a burnt stub of tobacco could reduce a person to pieces? But it does.