My wife Pearl passed away today, 13 years ago. Every year since then her sister Doris has provided some flowers on her birthday, which was last week. So I planted the latest, and adjacent is Pearl's Blood Lily plants, now just on the verge of blooming. I'll later provide a story about this flower.
As Tuesday is nostalgia day, here is my posting of 20July2009. Sorry, but it did not transfer well. You can read the posting by clicking on that link.
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IN CELEBRATION OF PEARL
My best friend, and wife, of almost 47 years, Pearl, just passed away, and it was both the saddest day of my life, and, surprisingly enough, still, joyfully blissful. Yes, I’m biased, but she was as beautiful on her 70th birthday (last week) than when we first met. She was recently sent a portfolio of photos taken at the May Hilo High School Quad reunion in Last Vegas, and, considering that she was in the oldest of four classes, it was amazing that she was the best looking Viking in the whole album. These two are the final photos I took of her last month. The shot above is with Yayoi, one of her favorite friends, wife of Professor Takeo Kondo of Nihon University, when they visited us last month. The background is the same Diamond Head (at the top) in my blog, which she took of me at House Without a Key of the Halekulani Hotel. The photo on the left was taken at our Craigside apartment.
We had discussed at some length the matter of death, and we both agreed that there should be no mourning period, but instead, a rebirth. My blog of July 16 provided “Some Thoughts on Coping with Uncertainty and Despair.” Both the uncertainty and the despair are now gone, and Pearl is at peace. Thornton Wilder, perhaps, said it best:
"The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude."
During the past month, Pearl suffered from BOOP, a clot in the artery to her lungs and MRSA. (For those new to blogs and such, all you need to do is click on those colored words, and you will be transported to another site providing the details.) While she was uncomfortable throughout the ordeal, she was sedated, so should not have suffered much pain. However, every day, her support structure, people like me, couldn’t help but associate her treatment with what was happening around us. Each morning, when I woke up, I felt weaker, and was sure my heart had actually shrunk a bit.
She was on nearly constant intravenous feed of Heparin and Propofol for much of this period. There remains, of course, the Heparin (blood thinner) controversy, where 82 died a couple of years ago from what is still not confirmed, but is suspected to be contaminated samples from China containing chondroitin sulfate. Doubly worse for Pearl is that sometimes this compound comes from crustacean shells, and she is allergic to crab, lobster, etc. Particularly unnerving was that Michael Jackson might have died from Propofol (a sedative).
As I mentioned in that previous blog posting, I’m now covering the medical aspects of my book 2, SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity, and just a few days ago I indicated that there are more deaths (almost always caught in a hospital) from MRSA than AIDS in the U.S. Finally, health care reform has dominated the discussion in D.C., further linking her case with the real world.
President Obama remarked that much of medical costs comes at the end of life. I can imagine if this happened to one of those 47 million or so without a medical plan, for it would have been financially ruinous. Of course, you want the doctors to run every test they can to save her life, and I can only thank them for doing everything possible for her. These expenses for Pearl must have reached a quarter million dollars in a few short weeks. Is this good or bad? That’s part of the debate in Congress.
The Pearl Foundation will be formed in her memory. We will do one more thing for her, and it could be to plant yellow trees at one of her favorite spots, or something particular for Planet Earth and Humanity. This will be a charitable donation and should be tax deductible, but it will take some time to gain the necessary paperwork cleared. In the meantime, no flowers, please, and hold any possible contributions until later.
Well, anyway, please join me in thanking Pearl for making our lives so much better. Her family and a few best friends will be “Celebrating” her life in a private ceremony at our home at 6PM on Friday, July 24. Please come if you were especially close to her. However, remember, we will only be sharing gratitude.
The Dow Jones Industrials climbed 104 to 8848, with world markets mostly up. Crude is steady around $64/barrel and gold surged $14/toz to $951.
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The morning she passed away I quickly wrote an article for the Huffington Post, Gratitude...Not Grief, which was immediately published that day. I then opened a bottle of Dom Perignon I had purchased awaiting her return home. Drank it all. Here a few photos of her, beginning with our wedding:
This azalea photo is especially meaningful for me, as, never in a darkroom before, I bought a whole set of equipment to make enlargements from slides, and this was my first, one. We traveled a lot. Here the Grand Canyon, followed by the oldest Cherry Blossom tree in Kyoto and our Crystal Harmony photo.
Just about 40 years ago when she was recovering at Kuakini Hospital from an operation, I bought her a Blood Lily, Scadoxus multiflorus, and told her that after the bloom goes, there will be a bulb or two left, which she could plant.
For 40 years now it has bloomed every July. This is a photo I took today on my lanai:
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