“Suzette”

 
            Suzette’s easy smile and throaty laugh drew me to her side when I entered the room. Sitting next to her in German class changed my life forever. Our fourteen year old souls recognized a link that bound us together for more than fifty years. Our surreptitiously passed notes carried our idealistic passion for life woven together with Suzette’s worries about her parents’ divorce and my angst over fitting in at school. We spent school hours together snickering at our own follies over high school crushes. Once her parents divorced and her mother moved into the apartment complex in our neighborhood, our afternoons and evenings stretched together. We applied to Trinity University and were both accepted. My father’s job change and my family’s move to League City meant I shifted to Texas A&M, with its lower tuition and housing costs.
            That separation, one that could’ve undermined our friendship, brought us even closer. Thick volumes of endless letters wove us together with our dreams and doubts stuffed into envelopes taped together with our optimistic hope. I understood her perfectionism, her passion for languages and music—and life. When she came back from her first trip to France, thin from living off of cheese, bread, and language, we celebrated her tale of a local woman’s astonishment that she was an American—and a Texan at that!
            Life events swept us up and along: marriages for both of us, child for me, divorce for her. My roots sank into one home and career while her passions for music and languages swept her to California and Tennessee, and many places in Europe. Our letters became less frequent, but we shared all of the burdens of adulting as the years passed. When Suzette began her first struggles, though, she didn’t let me know.
            One day in 2019, Suzette called me with the news that she’d returned to Texas! Her new address, fifteen minutes away, thrilled me. Our reunion became bittersweet within minutes as she told me about her hardships back in Nashville. She recounted struggling to focus at work and eventually not being able to hold down jobs. Both her sister and her mother had helped her find a doctor in Texas that she hadn’t seen yet. By our next visit, her optimism gave me hope that new medications would start impacting her thought processes. Her life became a script on an oversized calendar where she notated minutiae to hold onto moments. Unable to get a driver’s license, I’d pick her up for shopping or lunch out when her mother wasn’t available. Her sister could only find a practical, stark apartment open within easy driving distance from her mother’s place. We softened it with wall hangings, rugs, and soft throws. Someone had furniture in storage, and her place gradually filled with her gentleness. When she couldn’t remember how to work her DVD player, we’d run over for an in-person review with my husband bringing his guitar for music and food. When she met someone through her mother, she moved into a nicer place that ended up flooded by frozen pipes during the Texas freeze. We talked often. Eventually, she moved into a cozy small RV nestled by the river. I met her boyfriend, fell in love with her small dog, and tried to hold onto Suzette with each visit.
            I worried when she didn’t answer her phone. I left tons of messages for her. Eventually, Suzette called to let me know that she was in Florida to be closer to her sister, and to have more help by moving into assisted living. Sometimes Suzette would call me and loop into conversations. I always picked my phone, no matter where I was or what I was doing. We’d chat about her dog that she missed. We talked about my family. We talked about her day, my day, and anything that grounded her to the present. For many weeks, my messages went unanswered, but I left them in case an aide or her sister checked them. During our last conversation in March, she knew me.
            I hold onto that.
          Suzette’s friendship made me a better person. She taught me kindness. Her passion for music helped me understand my own son’s healthy obsessions with music and art. Her openness and generosity guided me through many difficult times. I will gather strength from the girls we used to be and women we grew into to make it through this next life passage without her.

Backwoods Volunteers

Suzette in France

Suzette 2015

Suzette with me- 2019 in Gruene, TX

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
 
   

“Guilty on 34 Counts

           

GUILTY

GUILTY

GUILTY

            Yesterday ex-president Trump’s New York jury found him guilty on all 34 counts of  felony fraud. Trump corrupted elections by hiding information from voters. For me, this moment demonstrates that the attempts of a political party to disassemble the foundations of our democracy took a blow. Supporters of Trump couldn’t wait to get before their fan bases to try to undermine the rule of law.

            It’s important to point out that this man, his family members, and his business don’t do well once a judge and jury examine evidence provided against them. I found out recently that some of my Trump supporting friends and family members didn’t even know that he was found guilty of Defamation and Sexual Assault against E. Jean Carroll. Another jury concluded that Trump committed sexual assault and defamation with Trump having to pay $5 million and $83.3 million in damages. These same people manage to spin the $355 million plus interest fraud verdict in New York into proof that Trump’s a risk-taker, which they find admirable.

            This same group of people insists that Trump’s being unfairly persecuted when confronted with the pending 37 felony count Mar-a-Lago Documents case surrounding his removal and retention of national security documents. They explain away the Fulton County Election Subversion case because they still want to believe that Trump won 2020. One eighty-year-old relative claimed recently that if he’d been younger, he would’ve been participating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Department of Justice Election Subversion felony charges, to him, are false claims against true patriots.

            What’s next for people like me, surrounded by MAGA madness?

 

                SPEAK.

            SPEAK OUT OFTEN.

            SPEAK OUT TRUTHFULLY.

       

 

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Rekindling a Love”

 

San Antonio Zoo 1981

            We moved from College Station, Texas to San Antonio in December of 1979, without jobs and on an extremely tight budget. Our finances allowed few luxuries during those first years as an old Honda Civic needed constant repairs, and I still had school loans to repay. We purchased bikes that provided many hours of entertainment. We found a few parks and preserves that offered escapes, all free, from our small apartment. Our favorite splurge, though, became a day at the San Antonio Zoo.

1985

            Eventually, parenthood meant even more frequent trips that included train rides and sky rides.  The zoo provided rides on elephants and camels during the 1980s as well as a petting zoo that our son grew to love dearly. Our traditions over the years included photographs with the lion sculpture. If family or friends came along, they struck poses, too.

1988

            Life took us along different paths that led us away from trips to the zoo as we spent weekends at the family cabin and discovered our love of Renaissance Fairs. Music lessons, art classes along with more demanding careers and aging parents shifted the zoo into an extremely fond memory.

            Then in December 2023, my son started wanting to visit this treasured place once again.  For our 45^th anniversary gift, we decided to purchase new zoo memberships as we found ourselves falling in love once more with all of the changes entwined with our special traditions.

1990

1990

2023

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Sunflowers”

 

 

Travel with me over the last few years and watch my sunflowers grow.

 

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

"Cold Feet"

 

 

Notoriously chill
My blocks of unfriendly ice
Make me wonder if I’m ill
With toes that I cover twice
One layer of cozy socks
Must always adorn my feet
Or those frosty digits shock
Anyone that I may meet
I know that their artic feel
Make me seem detached and cold
But that image isn’t real
Kindness guides me to be bold
Overlook my need for heat
And value me for my deeds
I will jump in with both feet
To help you with your needs
 

  

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Knees”

            In high school, I danced on the drill team during half-times. Our sadistic sponsor forced stretching and exercising workouts on us that make today’s PT specialists fume over the casual negligence of our young bodies. Vivid memories haunt me of the hard gym floor pressing into my chest as my partner sat on my back to force my muscles to stretch, stretch, and stretch. One position required us to fold back our knee on the floor, place the other leg straight ahead, and roll down with hands extended to touch our chests to the extended leg. Then we’d shift to the bended knee to pressure it into the ground. If the stretch wasn’t low enough, my partner pushed against my lower back, or sometimes even sat on me to hold me in place.

            No matter what injuries my knees sustained in adulthood, like falling down stairs at work, or slipping and twisting while mopping the kitchen floor, I know every twinge in my knees as I’ve aged began with this torture rendered in high school.

            In 2020, my abused left knee gave out while I was walking and required extremely slow, painstaking rehabilitation that I did following a PAs instructions. I never needed steroid shots. Tylenol Arthritis took care of my pain. My life changed dramatically as I let my knee recover. At first I couldn’t walk around our backyard without stopping. Stairs became a one-step-at-a-time process. After months, I returned to walking to the park. Within a year, I challenged myself with treks up “Suicide Hill” in our neighborhood. Then, I blew out my right knee by a combination of walking and raking leaves. Back to slow and steady rehab.

            During the time of my second knee recovery, we decided to get a stationary exercise bike. With my left knee, I found getting on the bike at the gym provided a safe way to get my heart rate up while not stressing my knees. Purchasing our own bike put my therapy steps away and removed the barriers of gym clothes and gym hours. At first, my knees protested even on the lowest resistance settings and with only fifteen minutes of riding. Now they sing through thirty minutes daily without nagging at me.

            My relationship with the bike is a love/hate one. I dread the thirty minute spin, but love that I can now walk up and down stairs effortlessly. I resent the push against the pedals, but enjoy the satisfaction of sweat. I resent the routine, but understand the need. I envision myself at age 80 with my resistance up and my heartrate low! 

   

 

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

             

“Petri Dish”

 

            Yesterday, a friend asked if I ever planned on returning to the classroom. After thirty years teaching and another eight years working as a substitute, she wondered if I missed my filled-to-the-brim days.

            “I can’t go back to the petri dish,” I responded directly to her question.

            “Petri dish?”

            “You know, the wonderful thing about Facebook turns out to be the Memories section. I never realized just how often I felt sick. How year-after-year, I suffered through stomach viruses and colds. Twice a year, my throat roughened into sandpaper. I caught colds that lasted for three or four weeks, recovered enough to feel decent for another week, and then cycled right back into hell.”

            Since 2020, I’ve had COVID-19 that was mild due to vaccinations and . . . NOTHING!

            At one point, I speculated that I may have had allergies since I fell sick repeatedly each fall and spring when both my husband and son suffered from airborne allergens. But during the last four years, I’ve walked when the ragweed and mold levels tip to purple without a sniffle. I bathed in oak pollen each spring with no scratchy throat, runny eyes, or chest tormenting cough.

            Work and school placed me into a petri dish of viruses that pulled me under within a few weeks of the start of each year and then again after winter break. I cycled from virus to virus and suffered tremendously.   

            The loss of substitute income means I’ve had to realign my budget, but it’s worth every penny lost because I feel so much better! In the back of my mind, I know that as I age, recovering from each round of virus induced illness may become harder. I want to live with as much good health as possible and diving back into the cesspool isn’t a risk I’m willing to take.  

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman