r Sevrnty Wedding Anniversary

 

                 Connie at 15 years old, and I, at about 20 years old.

By kiki

I added some pictures to this piece that I picked at random of Connie and me at different times of our marriage, times that saw us grow old together.

Connie and I were kids when we were married on my 18th birthday, December 13, 1954, and here sixty-two years later, we still sometimes act like kids. But, of course, Connie will tell you that only I act like a kid, and she might be right. Although Connie also likes to say that I am in my second childhood, I tell her that I haven't gotten out of my first childhood yet!.

Connie at 15 years old and pregnant with our first progeny, daughter, Linda - 1956.

                           Us celebrating a mid-1960 New Year's Eve.

 70 years ago, Connie and I started a journey without knowing where we were headed. All we knew was that there was a life out there for us as a couple; where that life would take us, we didn't0 know, but we forged forward anyway, sometimes not too steadily because of my immaturity. And like most marriages, ours had its up and downs, but in the end, thanks to Connie's strength, it all worked out blissfully for us, and I thank her for that. Of course, we're not in sync all the time, and of course, we lose our temple and patience sometimes, but we are more forgiving because we've built a foundation of talking and listening that continues to anchor everything we do. I don't always agree with her, and she doesn't always agree with me, but that's okay. Because we respect each other and we've grown, we listen, and more importantly, we learn from each other. And through it all, she still laughs her beautiful laughter at some of my corny jokes.

                                 Us at the 1984 Los Angeles Toy Run.

 

In the 70 years we've been together, we've experienced happy and sad times. We enjoyed happy times when the kids were born and suffered sad times at the loss of a newborn child, a grandchild, and a great-grandchild. But we take solace in that those little Angels are looking over us. Losing our parents was also hard on both of us.…. We were like new parents when the grandchildren and now great-grandchildren started arriving. We now have so many of both that I've lost count. But I will say I love them all, whatever that count might be!!

At a 1990 company Christmas party

 The day in 2004 of my sister Mary Ellen's funeral

A mid-1990 Christmas

Connie and I may not agree on everything, but we've become two souls with a single thought. Two hearts that beat as one…Now, we laugh, weep, and we mourn the loss of loved ones as one being….And now that we have reached the twilight of our journey, we can look back at some very cherished, along with some bittersweet moments, and say, hell yes, we made it!.... Love you, Babe, and thank you for your devotion to our marriage…Happy 70th Anniversary, Babe, and I look forward to spending the next 70 years with you!! She'll probably say with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "hell no, 70 years is enough!" She loves to pull my chain that way, and I love it.

 aLSO

We got old

December 13 is now a bittersweet day for us. Yes, we celebrate our anniversary and my birthday on that date, but December 13 is also the anniversary of the passing of my older sister, Rachel Baltazar-Egan. So, to honor her, we will have a moment of silence on this, the 12th anniversary of her passing.

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Connie & kiki Baltazar

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"Our Last Dance"

"Our Last Dance"

By kiki

This morning, I did something I hadn't done in years: I danced with Connie. "Say what? No way!" you say.

It's sad but true. How did it happen that we danced this morning??

Well, listening to music about love won and love lost (both in Spanish and English; some of the Spanish songs are really tearjerkers) all by myself in our bedroom most of the morning, I was feeling kinda melancholy, so when Connie walked into our bedroom I without thinking uttered the words" "would you like to dance"?" She said yes, and so with Johnny River's swaying to the music on the turntable, we swayed to the music without moving from the same spot we started from…As I walked her to the door, I felt memories rolling down my face.

Dancing with Connie this morning was a bittersweet moment in time because we both felt we'd had our last dance together, so we gave each other a tight squeeze at the end of our "Last Dance."

All real

 

Life Has Its Revenge When Taken For Granted.

 Life Has Its Revenge When Taken For Granted.

By kiki

Most of us are guilty of taking life for granted at times—well, not life per se, but everyday activities like showering, dressing, eating, driving, etc. And I am probably more guilty of abusing life than most other people.

We cruise through life doing all those things without giving them a second thought. And then, one morning, we are awoken by that day that we thought would never arrive; on that day, we find that we need help to do all the things we used to do automatically. 

Now that old age has us by the huevos, life will take its revenge on our sorry old asses for being so abusive in the early years of our relationship. What's that old adage saying, "What goes around, comes around?" It sure does, and it comes back in spades!. 

Fernie and I

 By kiki

About three weeks ago, my son Fernie fell as he was getting out of bed (he has pugilistic dementia and Parkinson's disease, and he had been falling about once a day for about the last month before this fall). My wife Connie and I helped him get back on his feet, and we told him to go to bed as he did not need to get up (he didn't have any doctor or haircut appointments). I stayed with him until he was safely back in bed. About twenty minutes later, I opened his door to check on him, and I found him on the floor again; by that time, Connie was into a well-deserved nap, so I helped the former #1 world junior lightweight (130 pounds) boxing contender, who now weights about 200 pounds to his feet. It was a struggle, but he got up for a brief second before his legs caved under him, and this time, he took me down with him; I landed hard on my back on the bottom part of an aluminum portable closet fame with Fernie and his 200 pounds on top of me. We might have made a loud noise when we went down because we woke Connie up from her nap. I kept saying to her, "Call 911 because I think that I broke my back. But when I saw that I could move my legs, I told her to forget 911. The following day, I could barely move, never mind trying to get out of bed. Fernie and I stayed in our respective beds for the day. The following day, I couldn't move without screaming out in pain. At about mid-morning, Fernie got up and told Connie that he was going to shower; Connie told him to be sure to use the shower chair and to be careful. He has never been the type of person who likes to be told what to do, so no, he didn't use the shower chair. Connie's yelling woke me up from a painful nap. "Fernie fell in the shower, and he is out cold." Hearing that, I jumped out of bed. Forgetting my pain, I went into the shower, and sure enough, I found Fernie out cold. I yelled at Connie to call 911, and within minutes, the 911 crew arrived, and they took Fernie to the ER; he was admitted to the hospital. The hospital doctor did tell Connie that Fernie's falls were caused by Parkinson's disease; about three days later, after making sure that he was okay from the shower fall, he was transferred to a nearby nursing home, where he is still residing.

I didn't go to the ER till two weeks after the fall, and the ex-rays show no broken bones on my back, but it still hurts awful when I stand up, even for just a few minutes. I, too, have Parkinson's disease.

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I asked about the Pico Palace because I wrote a short story yesterday about how a boxing trainer used to take us kids to box at the palace, among other places, back in the late '40s...The Pico Palace was on Whittier Blvd (north side) just west of where the 605 Freeway is now, somewhere close to where the steakhouse is now....The Pico Palace was a dance hall, like Betty's Barn in Irwindale...Besides dances, the palace also held amateur boxing about once a month. In Later years. the palace became a furniture store. At some point in time, it was razed down, I am not sure when that happened, though.

Dementia Up Front

 By kiki

There is nothing more horrible than watching loved ones as they suffer from dementia day in and day out. The disease will rob its victims of their dignity and self-pride, as they no longer care about their personal hygiene or their appearance.

They are no longer the person you had known for decades; yes, they may still be around you, and you may see them every day, but you are just seeing the shell of the person you once knew because dementia has taken that person's mind and soul away and just left a body masquerading as your loved one. And it's hard for non-medical persons to understand what the victim does or won't do.

 Seeing a once robust individual revert back to babyhood breaks one's heart. One of the hard things for the victim's loved ones is seeing them suffer as they go through hell and not being able to do anything about it. That feeling of helplessness can ruin relationships or, worse, kill you.

The one thing not to do is try to make the victim remember things as his memory is gone, and he will never get it back.

Parkinson's Disease .

Parkinson's Disease.

By kiki: Parkinson's Patient

Parkinson's is a very challenging disease, one that robber you of voice and body muscles. With the loss of voice, you have difficulty communicating with loved ones. You get frustrated because they can't understand you, and they get frustrated because they can't understand your baby talk. Soon, nerves get raw, to the point that causes most to throw their hands up in the air; it's really kind of comical because we all look like the cops have their guns pointed at us. With muscle loss, you slow down so that a Tortuga (turtle) would be a 10 to 1 favorite to beat you in a foot race. And you're always in danger of falling down, so to be safe from that, you use a walker and hope that the walker is in a good mood and not out to get your ass. The hard part for me is staying positive and maintaining my sense of humor  - And there are very few days where you can say,  "Today was a good day for me." 

A word to those who have loved ones who are struggling with Parkinson's: at the present time, there is no cure for the disease, so your loved one will never be the same person he was. You can't change that, but you can change how you react.