When I arrived at work at an elementary school library on Election Day, my watch rang.
I have an Apple Watch, and it is synced to my phone. So when the phone rings, so does the watch. I hadn’t even taken my phone out of my bag, so I looked at my watch and saw that the call was from a friend from Massachusetts. He and his wife had been visiting Maine for a few days. Why was he calling me at 7:20 on a Tuesday morning? It couldn’t be good.
It is possible to answer the phone on the watch and respond by tapping “Can’t talk right now,” or another response. I am also able to talk into the phone, which I thought was preferable in this situation. The technology is not perfect, however. Let’s face it, a watch is not a phone. Also, I feel like Dick Tracy when I use it as such, especially in public.
I was not alone in the library.
Anyway, I was able to communicate enough with my friend to establish that I would call him right back on my phone. Not surprisingly— for me— when I took it out of my bag the battery was down to a two percent charge. I had to plug in the phone before returning the call.
Finally, I was on the phone. My friend, Al, did have bad news. His wife had experienced chest pains in the night and had been rushed from Freeport, where they had been staying, to Maine Medical. She was undergoing tests, but the doctors thought she might have had a heart attack.
I stood stunned, then stammered out my concern. How quickly life changes — just in an instant.
My husband, Paul, has been friends with Al since they were high school classmates in the 1960s. Al and Judy were married right after college. I was a later addition to the group, when Paul and I met in the mid-1980s.
We saw our friends more often when Paul’s parents were alive, as Al and Judy live about an hour from Paul’s hometown. But we still manage to see them once or twice a year. In April, we celebrated our anniversary with a trip to the Berkshires, and they made the short trip to have dinner with us. They, in turn, planned a few days away in Freeport, and we went to meet them for dinner on Sunday, Nov. 6.
We had a great time, and everyone seemed fine. Judy has taken up horseback riding in her sixties, and she told us more about her horse. She and Al planned to spend part of the next day at Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park. After dinner, we said our goodbyes, with everyone in good spirits.
After I got off the phone with Al on Nov. 8, I called Paul. Al had tried to reach him first, but Paul was en route to the dentist, and didn’t answer. It was not yet time for Paul’s appointment, so I figured he was sitting in the parking lot at the dentist’s office.
Not yet 8 a.m. Wow.
Paul was as shocked by the news as I was. Judy is fit and hasn’t eaten meat or poultry for years. But both of her parents had heart issues. Genetics plays a big role in our health.
My father died at age 50 of a heart attack. However, he was a heavy smoker. I had been convinced he would get lung cancer; I didn’t know how tobacco can also affect the heart. In the years that followed, I thought I was in no danger of inheriting a tendency toward heart disease, because I’ve never smoked. As I get older, I’ve started to wonder if that’s really true.
We worried about Judy all day on Nov. 8. It was a nerve-racking Election Day, to boot. On Wednesday, we suffered anew, as none of us had voted for Donald J. Trump. By then, doctors still weren’t sure what had happened to Judy. To make matters worse, her roommate’s friends and family had stayed in their hospital room until 11 p.m. on Nov. 8, watching the returns and cheering on Trump. The next day, they came back and turned on “Duck Dynasty.”
Not surprisingly, Judy wanted to go home by then. The medical staff advised her not to, but she was determined. Back home in western Massachusetts, the chest pains returned. She was treated at a Springfield hospital and had a stent put in. She’s feeling much better, and is home, but she has to rest and make the rounds of a variety of medical professionals.
I know I am going to be surprised and saddened when friends and relatives take ill more and more as the years go by. I turned 60 in June, and some of my friends are older than me.
Things are going to happen.
As we left the house to go down to Freeport for dinner on Nov. 6, I took a miniature Hershey’s bar from the leftover Halloween stash. We had set the clocks back the night before, and I was starving. As I bit into the soft bar, I felt something hard and I panicked. Was it a nut? I’m allergic to nuts.
No, it was a piece of a tooth. A molar. Drat. I tried to avoid the visions of dental crowns that were now dancing in my head.
Luckily, the chipped tooth did not affect my enjoyment of our dinner. The dentist was able to see me the next day. And — hallelujah — he was able to fix the tooth right then and there. No crowns involved.
I lucked out. Our friend is recovering. Teeth are fragile. Life is fragile. I need to be grateful for every minute.
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