Lisa Hoffman and Charles Atkins

Published 11/25/04

Charlie Writes:

"So what shall we write about?" I ask, as the first sleet of the year spits from a dreary sky.

Lisa, dressed in matching leopard-print shoes and shirt—just arrived in the mail—mulls over the question. "It is Thanksgiving…or at least it will be, when this essay appears. And for me, it’s very special, this thanksgiving. The first thing is--I’m alive and functioning mentally. And also I am every day amazed about the outpouring of good wishes from people, not just friends, but people who I don’t even know who read our column and write to me and send me cards, and pray for me, and bring me food."

"Yes, your refrigerator…it’s out of control. We need to clean it out."

"No!"

"That carrot cake I brought from Costco is ancient; it’s got to be two-months old."

"It’s perfectly good. I love that cake…" and she quickly changes the subject. "Now I don’t want to be trite, but the saying that ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’--At this point--it’s very true.

"How do you mean?" I ask, letting her steer the conversation, while I ponder the shelf life of cream-cheese frosting.

She chuckles. "My cup runneth over…and so does my refrigerator.

"It’s got to be cleaned out, you can barely fit anything in there…or maybe I should have Steve do that," I threaten, invoking the name of her friend who single-handedly cleaned her kitchen. Or as I refer to it—the big dig.

"Lord, no! Not that. Anything but that! Was I born to suffer?"

"He’ll clean it right out."

"But then I’ll have nothing to eat…Do you realize how much food you waste. I think it’s because you have never gone through hardships and shortages of food and rationing."

"I know, but when it turns green..."

"It hasn’t yet…except for some bread which I’m giving to the birds…You know Gloria [our long-suffering editor] and I were discussing whether or not to use that photo."

"You mean the one of you as a little girl?" I ask, referring to a beautiful picture of a five year old Lisa.

"No, the one where I look so terrible."

"Why? It’s actually a very good photo."

"But I look so awful…my chin. Why do you think it’s a good photo?"

"Because it illustrated the subject we were talking about, you with the walker in the foreground, all of your stuff balanced around your chair as you talked on the phone with Arthur O’Neill about Medicare and how they were cutting back your aides."

"I suppose, but that’s how they shoot pictures for horror magazines, from underneath; it’s not very flattering."

"So, what else do we have to say about Thanksgiving?" I ask. "It’s been a hard year."

"Yes," she closes her eyes.

"Are you falling asleep?"

"No, I’m thinking about whether I should mention about getting my much-needed home-health services back. People may be curious to know about it after last week’s article."

"Do you know for how long?"

"No, I dare not ask. But for the time being it’s a relief."

"And what about getting the Occupational Therapist back to help you figure out getting into and out of the bath on your own?"

"I don’t know. I thought about it, but I don’t think there’s much that can be done. I just have to be very careful, and I do need somebody there…Did you know that all of the churches and synagogues in the area rotate having Thanksgiving dinner. This year it’s the Jewish Federation. They’re going to send it to me."

"That’s very nice."

"They do a wonderful job, and it’s all volunteers doing the cooking and everything."

And then her good-friend Margaret enters, with a bag of oranges.

"So," I ask her, "What’s your take on Thanksgiving?

"It’s a lot of work." She says, wiping cold rain off her shoulders. "So much time spent on one meal, and they wolf it down in twenty minutes; they eat like the dogs." She says, referring to her prized shelties. "And then they disappear and watch football."

"How many people are you having this year?" I ask, picturing my own family’s all-out bash, where between 30 and 50 friends and relatives descend on my parent’s home, each bearing a tin-foil-topped pie, or Pyrex dish of praline-crusted yams, or chestnut stuffing, or kitchen experiment gone horribly wrong invariably involving cranberries, nuts, mandarin-orange slices and something unidentifiable, but unfortunate.

"Not that many, just eight…it’s so." Margaret sighs. "It’s a lot of work. I have to go down and get my parents in Jersey at the beginning of the week. I don’t like them driving all that way…And of course when they come the dog comes, the cat comes."

"Yes," Lisa comments, "but you have all of the leftovers."

"True," Margaret says, as she sets about examining Lisa’s malfunctioning fax machine. "I love the leftovers."

"Now let me explain something to you," Lisa says, as Margaret starts to work. "I had originally somebody trying to send me a fax; it never came through. He tried and tried and tried. All that came out were some very pale pages."

"You’re out of ink," Margaret says, immediately diagnosing the problem that had Lisa on the phone for hours the day before. "I’ll go to Staples and pick up a cartridge."

"That would be wonderful."

And Margaret heads back into the freezing rain.

"She’s a fantastic girl," Lisa comments.

"She really is," I agree, thinking about how Margaret, and Lisa’s other friends have made her return home a possibility. It’s been over two months since she left the rehab facility, and what at first seemed tenuous, has turned into a reality with a rhythm and structure—not what she had before—but viable.

"You know we take so much for granted," Lisa says, returning to our theme. "When you think that I’m in a warm home, with electricity and food to eat. When you think that other people in other parts of the world are fighting wars or dying of malnutrition."

"I know, we are abundantly blessed. Before coming over here, I stopped in the middle of my morning ritual, and thought about all the things I can do, and that I take for granted; it’s really something, even the simple acts of shaving and showering…making a pot of coffee, driving, being able to sit down and write…having a book accepted for publication, working in a profession where I get paid to help people. All these things could easily be taken away." I say, as I think about Lisa and what she’s been through with her stroke.

"You know," she says, "at age 85 I still have my mental faculties and bring enjoyment to my readers, who daily let me know what it means to them. So I try not to dwell on the other stuff. As you know, I pull mental curtains down when things become not too pleasant. It’s not denial; I’m aware of the things I can no longer do. But I adjust to it and I make the best of it; it’s like that Serenity prayer, ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.’"

And Margaret returns with the toner, fixes the fax, as another friend enters with the mail.

And the thing we don’t mention—although it’s quite clear—is that we’re thankful for this time, for our friendship, and for the sheer fun of working together and then sharing what we write with you.

[ Home ] [ Up ]