Sunday, February 2, 2025 (Imbolc, Groundhog’s Day); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
Not a great past few months for your older sister. Aging can be serene at times; at others it’s no picnic, as I’m sure you know. Jim had a second retinal tear, though this one seems to have been less severe than the first. It still means that I have had to take over driving him to doctor’s appointments, plus driving to any non-Jinny social activities he wants to attend. He’s getting to be a regular at monthly ROMEOs (Retired Old Men Eating Out) events and sometimes wants to be chauffeured to weekly bridge games. I wish I could say I was learning patience as I get older. Perhaps, at least, I’m getting more practice. We’ve had the first couple of follow-up eye appointments, and he seems to be healing well. It will just take time (weeks or months rather than years, thank God) until he’s back up to snuff.
Covid may be mostly gone, but I still have some of the habits I acquired when infection rates were higher—I hesitate to shake hands with people; I carry hand sanitizer with me whenever I’m away from home; at pedestrian crossings, I use a sleeve or an elbow to push the “walk” button instead of pressing it with my hand; I’m uncomfortable being indoors around large groups of people.
We had a quiet Thanksgiving at son Jason and Kelly’s, though Jason and grandson Parker were away—Parker was competing in the final high school cross-country meet of the season at a course near Fresno. Kelly, granddaughter Ada, Jim, me, and the Schaefer grandparents ate mostly vegetarian fare, with ham for the meat eaters and pumpkin and apple pies for dessert.
Christmas was quiet, too. Son Scott, Morgan, and Kenley went to Connecticut to visit with Jim’s brother Paul and sister-in-law Vivian. They traveled a couple of weeks before actual Christmas, when flights were less crowded and less expensive. We got to participate via video call. It was good to see them together. Kenley very much enjoyed being the star of the show. At Christmas itself, we spent some in-person time with Jason and crew, and some video and phone time with the rest of the extended family. None of us adults need anything any more, so we just get perishables for the grown-ups, make charitable contributions in relatives’ honor, and reserve toy or clothing purchases for the kids.
We’ve spent an increasing proportion of our social time with an older couple we met through Tierrasanta Village—Marc and Grazia. We especially admire Grazia’s resilience as we learn more about her past. Born in the late 1930’s, Grazia spent most of her childhood in Lithuania. Her family was badly impacted by the upheavals of the World War II era. For the past decade, she’s worked intermittently at writing a memoir about her childhood, with a tentative title of “surviving Stalin and Hitler.” When she was about 3, the Soviets invaded a formerly independent Lithuania. Her father, who had been a high government official, was imprisoned nearby, but later escaped with the tacit connivance of a sympathetic young prison guard. Times were tense. For a while, Grazia and her mother hid in a remote wooded area. After Hitler declared war on the Soviets in 1941 and the Soviets retreated, Grazia’s father reunited with his wife and daughters. He also tried to locate and support the rest of their extended family. Most had either been killed or deported to Siberia. Facing food shortages in their town, the immediate family relocated to a farm near the German border that had originally belonged to Grazia’s paternal grandmother. For the middle years of the war, Grazia’s family was away from the fighting. They lived a peaceable, if near-subsistence existence on her Grandma Ona’s farm. Near the end of the war, conditions again deteriorated. The Soviets returned. The Nazis fled back to Germany. Grazia’s family also fled west into Germany to escape near-certain deaths at the hands of vengeful Soviets.
While the family were interned under the Nazis amid increasingly stark conditions, Grazia’s youngest sister starved to death. At the end of the war, the surviving members of her immediate family made a perilous escape through Berlin toward the West. They spent several years in relocation camps in Europe before eventually being sponsored to come to the U.S.
It seems to me that Grazia’s story is worth telling and can help put some of our current discontents into a broader context. I’ve been serving as an early reader. Grazia, now in her late 80’s, has a variety of health issues. I’m really hoping she’s able to complete a draft while she’s still alive. One of the ways she has survived her various traumas is through art and an extravagance of Christmas decorations—at a festive New Year’s gathering at their place, we counted nearly 50 (mostly artificial) holiday trees of various sizes and shapes, all lavishly and lovingly decorated. Not a biological family gathering, but a joyous holiday just the same.
So far, 2025 has had a rather bad start. You’ve probably seen footage of the huge wildfires that wiped out a couple of sections of the Los Angeles area in early January—one a partially posh enclave replete with movie stars and other big names (Pacific Palisades), the other a more modest area that had over generations become home and community to a substantial number of upwardly mobile black families (Eaton/Altadena). Over 200,000 people had to evacuate. Over 16,000 structures were destroyed. It’s not clear when/whether rebuilding can take place. Nearer to us, San Diego County had a big wildfire at the end of January, but it burned in a wilderness area and didn’t destroy any structures. Still, the “Border 2” fire singed over 6,000 acres. All the fires were associated with strong Santa Ana winds, some reaching 100 miles per hour. These sorts of “mega fires” seem likely to become more common as time goes on. Our existing housing patterns and infrastructure make it difficult to contain them.
In addition to the fires, we’ve had to deal with the start of “Trump 2.0.” If initial indications can be trusted, his second term may turn out to be even worse than the first. According to my reading of his initial mutterings, Mr. Trump has promised to protect Americans from
a) immigrants (except for his wife and her family?);
b) government overregulation (except for huge no-compete contracts for his friends and cronies?);
c) climate mitigation efforts (got to prop up those oil companies!); and
d) the horrific (to him) specter of a diverse, inclusive country.
He quickly signed executive orders to start his efforts in motion, gleefully using his sharpie on a whole stack of official-looking documents. (I’m not sure how any of his policies will make my life any easier or more meaningful, but that’s just me.)
Probably needed a good Groundhog celebration to offset some of the world’s woes, and got it—a very nice weather day today, a good assortment of family, friends, and neighbors in our freshly cleaned carport. We avoided talking politics and just enjoyed each other’s company. Hope you had a quiet day with enough heat from the wood stove to keep things toasty. Please take good care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
