Missing My Fellow Water Babies

This morning I went to the Lake for the first time since early July. It was a beautiful morning, at least 10 degrees cooler than yesterday, the first weekend after Labor Day, sunny with some clouds rolling in, and simply pretty. Even though the leaves haven’t started turning yet and there is plenty of evidence that people are still taking advantage of the summer weather to barbecue and picnic, it is starting to feel like fall. Granted school is back in session, there are no lifeguards on duty, and there is pumpkin spice-themed merchandise advertised everywhere, so yes, it’s fall, y’all!

Chicago has been revitalizing the Southside for the past 20 years or more, which includes revamping the parks, beaches, and bridges along Lake Shore Drive and so I have a favorite place that I like to go. ‘My’ beach, Oakwood Beach, here in Chicago on Lake Michigan’s shore, has been one of my ‘constants’ this past decade and a touchstone, especially since COVID. I’ll divert on occasion, but this is my go to place. I like to park on the neighborhood side of DuSable Lake Shore Drive and use the 41st St. pedestrian bridge between Oakwood and 43rd Street to cross over. Oakwood Beach itself is protected by two small piers/breakwaters and I usually include both on my path. Depending on the year, season, day or weather, sometimes I’ll include a swim, some journaling, or a phone call, but almost always there is a walk and lots of photos taken.

Anyway, this morning’s walk found me in a very reflective mode, which I didn’t quite expect. As I walked, I realized that I’ll no longer be sharing these walks with two incredible women and one amazing dog, all of them water babies like me.

Three years ago, the weekend after Labor Day was officially the beginning of Mom’s pancreatic cancer journey, when she went into the ER suffering from jaundice. However, it would be another 9 months–Memorial Day 2024–before the cancer was officially diagnosed. Two years ago, Mom was midway through 6 months of chemotherapy which was working, bringing her cancer numbers down. A year ago at this time, Mom’s cancer was manageable and in a plateau. Her appetite, diabetes (a result of her cancer treatment), weight loss, and fatigue seemed manageable and our energizer bunny gave the illusion that this status could go on indefinitely. Unfortunately, that’s not how this cancer thing works and Mom passed on March 12, 2026. Today I wanted to share with Mom that I was listening to a good book she would have liked (Ruth Reichl’s Delicious!) and to send her pictures and videos of the Lake, knowing how much she would have loved having me share my adventures with her.

Since we moved back to Chicago in 2014, Bleu and I have spent a lot of time walking at the Lake–a LOT. He has been a constant on these adventures–walking with me, hanging out while I wrote or talked on the phone or made a new contact, protecting me. We made it to the Lake almost every morning we were in town during the Summer of 2023–such a special time. He loved playing in the water as much as I did that summer and we definitely got our steps in! He’s been my bestie, but he’s been slowing down the past two years, unable to go as far as he once could. We found out that he had a mass on his liver around Halloween and knew that his time with us was limited, but he was still up for a couple of trips to the Lake this year, making sure our newest addition, Sir Isaac ‘Newt’ Newton got a proper introduction. We had to say goodbye to our Little Boy Bleu on August 26th and this first trip to the Lake without him was tough.

On the afternoon of Thursday, September 3rd, I got a message from one of my dear Willikies Village, Antigua neighbors, Lois, extending condolences over the passing of my Dominica born/Antigua raised sister, Marcella Andre. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer on Antigua from 1992-1994 and when we first arrived on island, Nancy D. and I were placed with the Harris Family before we found our own housing. I lived in Willikies Village and stayed very close to the Harris Family during my service, as well as afterwords. There is so much I will write at a later date about Marcella and the Harris Family and pictures to share, but for now, I will say simply that I considered Marcella my baby sister and she considered me her big sis and while we would go stretches without talking to one another directly, we rarely dropped off of each other’s social media radar detectors for longer than a few months. Above all, we both knew what we meant to one another. Unfortunately, with everything that had been going on this summer in my world, I hadn’t realized that Marcella had gone radio silent. It turns out she had returned to Antigua from Dominica to undergo treatment for cancer. My dear baby sister, who introduced me to Dominica, the Nature Island, and was wise beyond her years, left us way too soon. Today, I was missing being able to share being at the Lake with Marcella and talking to her about how much her loss hurts.

While I was mourning the loss of Mom, Bleu, and Marcella deeply this morning, feeling the pain of their absences profoundly, I was also feeling immense gratitude that each of their journey’s had crossed with my own. Each has been so important to my world in such unique ways and on so many different layers that I feel truly blessed–a feeling I was not expecting this morning when I set out for my walk.

Happy Father’s Day–2026

A busy day spent hanging out with this dynamo today, but wanted to make sure I sent a special Father’s Day wish to this special guy.

Love you bunches and bunches, Dad!!!! You are the best!

Father’s Day 2025

Happy Father’s Day to all the guys out there who play the role of father figure in someone’s world. Here is a quickly updated Father’s Day post for that wonderful guy that I call Dad.

What a couple of years! While my mom has always tended to knock caregiving out of the ball park with a home run, my dad has never been a slacker and has always been quietly plugging away in the background, supporting my mom and our family in so many ways. During the past nearly 2 years, with all of the health challenges my mom has been experiencing, he has needed to put his caregiving for my mom in turbo mode and has done an amazing job throughout, including learning how to give at home antibiotic infusions to my mom this winter when she ended up with a horrible jaw infection!

In the midst of it all, he has continued to be a major role model in the civic arena, where he actively phone banked and helped get out the vote last fall prior to the election, as well as actively participating in using his 1st Amendment Right to protest and assemble this spring. I have even been lucky enough to participate with him a couple of times–like yesterday!

Dad, you Rock!!!!!!!!! Happy Father’s Day!!!!!

And here is the Father’s Day post I originally wrote on my other blog A Home for the Family Tree back in 2015 that still holds true today!

Father’s Day 2015

While my Grandpa Cooper deserves the credit for my being a water baby and my mom deserves it for my love of reading, my dad is the one responsible for the fact that I take being active, in some form or fashion, for granted.

My dad played baseball growing up, playing in high school and while attending Wayne State University. He worked for the Detroit Parks and got a degree in Physical Education. While Barb and I were in elementary and middle school, he taught PE and then middle school science in the suburban Detroit community of Livonia, coaching baseball and teaching driver’s ed. As a gym teacher, he was more interested in his students earning Presidential Fitness Awards and acquiring a love for being active, than winning the next football game. As a father of two daughters growing up after the establishment of Title IX in 1972, he made sure we had the same exposure to sports and activities he would have given sons.

He taught us to ride a bike, drive & wash a car, fish (yes, I know how to put a worm on a fishhook) and fly a kite. He played catch with us and built skating rinks in our backyard so we could ice skate and play hockey. He supported our learning to water and snow ski, take ballet and skating lessons, and play basketball.  He never had issues with our playing sports on his lawn and even used tuna cans to create a miniature golf course in our back yard. Even the dollhouse he built for us encouraged activity!

My dad has also led a very active life himself. He was a runner for 15-20 years and then when hip problems started to occur, he walked and biked with equal dedication. He played hockey and softball as an adult; was an Army reservist, downhill skier, and sailor; and even waterskied (slalom) well in to his 60s. This active man modeled a healthy lifestyle for his daughters and grandchildren and made being mobile and active a given.

For lots of pics and the original post, follow this link:

http://ahomeforthefamilytree.family/2020/06/21/happy-fathers-day-dad/

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!!!!! Love you to the Moon!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Entangled. Now it’s Time to Start Detangling.

I had long hair when I was little. Bangs in the front, but long hair on the rest of my head. Periodically I’d get it tangled and Mom or Grams would have to get to work trying to get it untangled. Often, they would pull on my scalp and I’d have a bit of a tantrum, but thanks to their patience and dexterity, I’d be camera ready in no time. Mom had long hair at the same time, as did my younger sister Barb. And then in 1976 during that year’s Winter Olympics, Dorothy Hamill became America’s Sweetheart, winning a gold medal in figure skating and driving a desire by girls and women to emulate her with her famous hair cut. At some point, either during the summer of 1976 or 1977–gotta check my parent’s photo albums–I somehow influenced my mom into giving my sister, Barb, and myself a Dorothy Hamill haircut. When Barb and I looked in the mirror at the results, we were traumatized. I apparently broke down in tears and was inconsolable, to the point that my mom started chopping her own beautiful long hair into a Dorothy Hamill cut, showing solidarity with her girls. Two things happened as a direct result of the Dorothy Hamill incident: my mom never had long hair again–and I haven’t had short hair. I was so traumatized that I never let Mom cut my hair again (as if the hair cut fad and my bugging her to give me the same cut was all her fault!!) and I’ve frankly avoided and procrastinated on hair cuts and trims ever since. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that I’ve never been one to follow the latest hair styles. Also, maybe this is one of those reasons that I seem to have such a hard time making any kind of cut to things close to me?

Anyway, the past couple of years have been hard. I’ve been squeezed between caregiving for my mom as she battled pancreatic cancer back in my Plymouth, Michigan hometown (a 4-5 hour drive each way) and for my husband here in Chicago, as he has dealt with prostrate cancer while struggling to maintain a small, boutique urban agriculture business. My career has been a challenge, with lots of instability and insecurity, as well. It also never helps when so many things seem to act as a barrier, isolating me from the companionship, fun (or at least lightheartedness!) and support of my friends and support networks. This past fall, I found I was back to where I was 13 years before in the fall of 2012 with my own cancer journey. Neither Terry or my mom were in ‘active’ visible treatment, so on the surface everything looked ok. So what if Terry’s business wasn’t rebounding the way we needed it to or Mom’s Stage 4 pancreatic cancer hadn’t actually been eradicated, no one was going in for surgery or rushing to the ER or undergoing chemo or radiation treatments, right? Because it wasn’t visible, everything was ok, correct? I honestly had myself believing that everything was fine and I was just overreacting to the challenges at work and with my life. I mean come on, why should I have reacted to ICE agents targeting my Chicago community’s students and parents or been conflicted while teaching my Civics classes when I was seeing so many of the public, civil, and moral moorings I’d been raised with being yanked out from under me?

Needless to say, I was struggling with it all in the fall to the point that when I went in for my annual mammogram and appointment with my oncological nurse practitioner, Nurse D, in early November and she informed me that while she couldn’t prescribe medicine to help me deal with my struggles, she could write me a script to see an oncological therapist. Her simple recommendation was like a light switch being turned on and gave me this strong feeling of hope. I was reminded of how when I was in a really bad funk 13 years prior, my rock star primary care physician Dr. Jennifer Garrett recommended I see the wonderful therapist Rebecca. Back then, I was no longer in active treatment for my breast cancer, so why wasn’t I just moving on with everything and getting my life back on track? Rebecca turned out to be the guide who helped me work through the hard stuff and get to a better place. Realizing in November that I might be in a similar place with my head space to 13 years previously, suddenly my feelings were validated and instead of triggering more PTSD, I was suddenly triggering these positive feels and memories of resources and support that had helped me manage the hard stuff in the past. Reinforcements and support were coming!!! Like I said, it was like a light switch had been turned on, reminding me that I could get through this round of hard stuff, too.

Anyway, it took two months, but I was finally scheduled for a virtual appointment the first week of January with a great therapist, Ms. S, who has turned out to be a perfect fit for where I’m at on this leg of my life’s journey. While the challenges and issues evolved between November and January, Ms. S has been there to give me support and offer guidance as I have navigated Mom’s hospice care and her passing on March 12th; have been dealing with work issues and stressors; and have been thrown back into active caregiving mode for Terry as he has been undergoing 2 months of radiation treatment for his prostrate cancer. She had the insight in the past month or so to observe that I am a bit ‘entangled’ with everything going on in my life right now: with grief, commitments, priorities, responsibilities, and boundaries. Besides offering kind, yet straight-talking, advice and new resources to try like the How We Feel App, she has also encouraged me to reconnect with what has worked in the past to get me through the hard parts and detangle the messiness. One of those things–that I’ve been too tapped out to do between physical and mental exhaustion and fatigue before now–is to actually write and publish blog posts. However, with this summer break lifting some of my responsibilities and stressors, I’m going to see if I can restart a regular writing practice with this Searching for EMWA blog. Very curious to see where this detangling goes. Hope you will join me.

Compendium of EMWA Rebooted

From October 2013:

com•pen•di•um [kuh m-pen-dee-uh m]

noun, plural com•pen•di•ums, com•pen•di•a

1. a brief treatment or account of a subject, especially an extensive subject; concise treatment: a compendium of medicine.

2. a summary, epitome, or abridgment.

3. a full list or inventory: a compendium of their complaints.

Marie at Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer does a very cool Weekly Roundup of posts. Nursing Clio puts together a “check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news” in Sunday Morning Medicine. Two Nerdy History Girls put together a list of weekly Breakfast Links, while Eric Barker at Barking up the Wrong Tree sends out a weekly post of his most popular articles. Brain Pickings does a Brain Pickings Weekly. And the list goes on.

I don’t know if I will get to a weekly post gathering the posts that had the greatest impact on my world, but I do think I can put together a regular collection. Monthly?

I started reading Marie’s weekly roundups at Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer before I started Searching for EMWA and frankly, I think that she is the reason that I became a blogger. Her regular compilations and postings–compendiums–over the years have given a platform and exposure to so many writers in a nurturing, supportive, and positive way. This helps to build confidence and develop voice in new writers, while continuing to motivate those of us who have been around for awhile to keep writing, knowing that our voices will still matter.  She has created a community of writers and readers who share ideas, resources, space, and hope (and our shared grief when someone passes) and I am truly grateful to have had my writing included in quite a few of these weekly posts over the last 12 years. The way Marie has continued to put her posts together so consistently and with such care, is incredibly inspiring. However, she has also shown that we can all evolve and move in new directions with our writing, advocacy, and use of social media, through her own example. She nudges us through her Health Care Social Media site, as well as her contributions to LinkedIn where you will find tons of advice of how to stay relevant on social media through Social Media Savvy. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Marie!!!!!! You are a rock star!!!!!!! 

I thought that I would try out a weekly compilation of what I found interesting 12 years ago when I created two Compendium of EMWA posts, one in October 2013 and one in January 2014; however, a lot of transitions took place in 2014 and I didn’t have the head space to continue the practice. There have been a couple of times where I thought I would restart, but life happened and the focus of my writing didn’t really lend itself to that type of posting. However, I’m really feeling the need to start the practice again. This post is an attempt to create a framework for myself of what I want to include in these Compendium posts.

One of my main strengths as an educator and public historian has been as a resource, someone who is a bridge to information and knowledge that seems valuable or interesting in some way. While I’ve taught a variety of high school social studies and English classes over the years, a course in Chicago that I’ve taught yearly for the past 6 years, has been Civics. Here in Chicago, many of us have been using a curriculum called Participate Civics, which was designed by CPS teachers and has a very multicultural, student-centered approach. It helps students find their voice and think differently about community, government, activism and advocacy, rights, and their own place in a Democracy.  In a nutshell, it was designed to build engaged and empowered students. What I didn’t expect when I started teaching this course, however, is that this curriculum would also give me inspiration, new insights, and resources, as well as nudge me to do more–even if I don’t consciously know what that ‘more’ is. 

This past year or so, as I’ve been engaged in what is going on politically in our world, I’ve been absorbing A LOT. Sometimes I can share these resources, thoughts, and ideas with my high school students, but I often can’t. Last (school) year, as everything rolled out with the election and new administration, I often struggled to filter and organize my thoughts for my classes in real time.

***Case in point, when the Class of 2028 graduates, I bet all of my 1st period Civics class students will remember my reaction to the 2024 Election results!!! I was caught totally off guard and in reactive mode, which they of course filmed and shared with their friends in my other classes!!***

Frankly, I was missing an adult outlet to help me filter, organize, and share my thoughts and what was catching my attention.  Between the nature of a teacher’s schedule and my added caregiving responsibilities this past year, I’ve been isolated. Blogging with Searching for EMWA has helped me connect and process my life over the years. However, should I include that ‘political’ processing here? Did I really want or need to create a whole new blog to deal with all that I want to cover, though? While this blog started to help me process breast cancer, that has never been my only focus. It’s taken time–and a summer to unwind from such an intense period of my life–to recognize that I’ve yet again been overthinking things. Just bring back Compendium of EMWA, darn it! Since school starts tomorrow here in Chicago for teachers (kids go back on the 18th), today feels timely to wrap this post up and formally kick this new direction off. Yes, for those of you who have been following, I am returning to my new school from this last year! 

So, let’s see how this goes! Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here are some recent pics of my time at the Lake, where I tried to spend as much time as possible during this last week of my summer vacation. Lake Michigan’s water temp is up to 70 degrees and has been perfect to swim in! Might just have to try to go in the evening after school and on the weekends a few times this next month or so, until cooler weather sets in.

Whooosh!!!!

Anyone that is keeping track, I did write a post with a similar title 12 years ago: Whooooshhhhhhh! which contains a similar sentiment to this year. Busy summer, lots of life in motion, lots going on and lots of great memories! It was also one of those summers where I was processing an intense couple of years. Bingo!

First, a recap of this summer, so far:

Weekend One: Metro Detroit to drop off Bleu with my parents so they could granddogsit when we went to NOLA, attend a No Kings! protest with my dad, and celebrate Father’s Day.

Weekend Two: drove to New Orleans and back with Terry and had a surprisingly restive and rejuvenating long weekend celebrating the end of Terry’s cancer treatment and reconnecting with one of my favorite cities.

Weekend Three and Four: I spent a week with my parents in Metro Detroit. I went to pick up Bleu one weekend and unexpectedly stayed through the 4th of July weekend! It was a relaxing visit in the midst of a lot of turmoil in the world and I really appreciated being able to spend some quality time with my parents and attend a couple of my mom’s doctor’s appointments. My sister is usually the point person since she lives so close and it was a nice change being able to do this for them.

Weekend Five: Terry planned to travel to Columbus, Ohio for the Cultivate 2025! Expo and so I decided to tag along so I could visit my dear friend, Kelly. Despite a crazy tire stem leak in one of our tires that wasn’t properly identified or fixed until we got BACK to Chicago; some crazy summer storms moving through over the weekend; and it being really hot, we had a really good time! We stayed at a really (surprisingly) nice Red Roof Inn Plus that had been renovated the month before and ate some yummy food at Katalina’s and North Market. And Kelly made it safely back into Columbus through those crazy storms, so that we could have some extra special quality time together on Sunday morning which was awesome!!!!! A quick regional Michigan/Ohio cultural insight: There is a huge rivalry between the University of Michigan and Ohio State University. Huge! Terry and his family are very much pro-U of M which means that Terry was definitely feeling a few ‘feels’ staying at a hotel basically on OSU’s campus…

Weekend Six: Last weekend, Terry and I headed North 400+ miles to visit the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Terry’s Uncle Stephen was one of the co-founders of the Holy Protection Monastery (which began as the Holy Tranfiguration Skete in 1983) and Terry and I have been visiting the monastery at least once a year for the past 21 years. I attended Northern Michigan University as an undergrad and love the UP, so the fact that Terry and I both have connections to the area is one of the things that drew us together, frankly.

The Keweenaw Peninsula is divided by the Keweenaw Waterway, with the Michigan Tech University college town of Houghton on the south shore and Hancock on the north shore, connected by The Portage Lake Lift Bridge–the the world’s heaviest and widest double-decked vertical-lift bridge. Terry and I were actually grabbing lunch last Saturday at the Keweenaw Coop Market and Deli (which is in a new Hancock location and a little more trendy than most would prefer, but it’s still a cool place) and got to witness the bridge lifting for a couple of boats to go through, which was very neat.

The Keweenaw is definitely a rural part of the country, very isolated, and not the easiest to get to, but the trade off is that it is so beautiful and peaceful and full of lots of outdoor things to do from hiking, kayaking, skiing, and mountain biking to checking out the Northern Lights, Brockway Mountain Drive, and fall colors. If you can, combining a trip up Brockway Mountain Drive and fall color viewing is truly spectacular! There are also plenty of events going on throughout the year; lots of history for us history nerds (the Keweenaw Michigan National Historical Park is a wonderful partnership between the National Park Service and area organizations); and a variety of local foods and restaurants to try: from Fitzgerald’s yummy barbecue and its fantastic location on Lake Superior to tasty meat patties filled with meat and root veggies called pasties (past-tees–not paste-tees!) and Lake Superior White Fish.

Here is a wonderful brochure of the Keweenaw with lots of info!

The Monastery itself is located between Eagle River and Eagle Harbor, sitting right alongside Lake Superior and Great Sand Bay, and has been built on a combination of land and buildings that were once used for copper mining, as a motor lodge, and for logging/forestry. Over the years, the original motor lodge buildings have been rehabbed and incorporated into additions or new buildings. The complex sure has evolved a great deal in the past 40 years! This interview with a local news station from 2003 is priceless and so much fun to watch! 2003 Local Interview

Besides being a place of spiritual prayer, mediation and worship and serving the needs of a community, monasteries usually have another, more secular hustle/vocation that helps out the monastery and the local community as a whole. There are Catholic monasteries that focus on retreats and hospitality, those that grow specialized timber to build wooden caskets, some are famous for brewing beer, and there are others that specialize in making wine. There are also those monasteries that sell baked goods, jams & jellies, honey, syrups, coffee, and chocolates. Holy Transfiguration Skete/Holy Protection Monastery is one of these forms of monastery and from day one, with the help of Terry’s Grandma Zora’s recipes, The Jampot has thrived on their sales of baked goods, jams and jellies, with additional selections in the past decade or so of chocolates and roasted coffees. My favorites from The Jampot have to be the Hermit Cookies, Apple Butter, Dark Chocolate Truffles, Thimbleberry Jam and understated Cinnamon Rolls.

While Terry’s Uncle Stephen/Father Nicholas passed in May 2017, we have stayed close to the other monks and are still considered family friends of the Monastery itself. This trip we stayed in one of the renovated cabins and it was such a nice get away! The weather was perfect!!!! Only true negative: those dang bugs!!!!!! We spent time with the monks, explored, had dinner one night at Fizgerald’s, went on some walks, and I even took a quick, frigid dip in a very cold Lake Superior. It was definitely a fun way to celebrate Terry’s birthday!

Weekend Seven

This weekend we are back in Chicago for a change (the first one in 7!) and frankly, it feels kinda weird. What’s crazy is that I’ve spent more time in transit and out of town then I’ve spent in Chicago these past 6 weeks!!! I almost don’t know how to just ‘be’ and am struggling to figure out my schedule. But making do! 🙂

And, to wrap up this post, here are some last beautiful sunset pics looking out over Lake Superior.

Thank you for reading all the way through this post! I hope you are finding some beauty in your world. Feel free to share some of that beauty in a comment or picture of your own. Wishing you a peaceful week and all de’ best.