Celebrating Phil Henry

I spent this afternoon with many others celebrating the life of my dear brother-in-law Phil Henry, who died March 14 of weak kidneys and a strong will. He asked me to read these words at his memorial service, and I was honored to comply.

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As I write this, I'm 80 years old and know that the pages of my life's book have mostly been written….and when you hear these words, the last page will have been written.

To my family and friends present today, I say "hello" and "goodbye."  I'm sure the irony does not escape you.

First, thank you for being my friends; thank you for being my family.  Each of you has played an important part in the mosaic of my life. 

There are others who have already died; many who have been very important to me.  A double posthumous thanks to:

Debbie,

Big T and Pat,

Rich,

Lee,

Pete,

my sister Marlee,

and so many others who enriched my life.

I'd like to share with you a few of my feelings about life and death. 

Richard Feynman, arguably one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the 20th century, said on his deathbed,

"We are lost in this mysterious universe that has no purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.  It doesn't frighten me." 

This thought has always resonated with me.

My life has been mostly rewarding, and I want you to know that the main reason for that is my wife Nancy.  She has shared with me most all of the wonderful texture of living.  She has been the love of my life.

I have been fortunate:

I have loved and been loved.

I have experienced victory and defeat.

I have marveled at the natural world.

I have traveled to exotic places on our earth and have had a glimpse of other cultures.

I have lived through different time periods--I call it time travel--and if you think that the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s weren't a different world from the 21st century, think again.

I've said goodbye to all those things now.  I have no illusion about going to "a better (or worse) place." 

I feel lucky to have been able to appreciate on earth the things that, for me, create the proverbial heaven:

A good laugh

The changing seasons

Good music

Nature in all her aspects

Companionship and love

Curiosity

A fine meal.

All who have known me are aware that I think music is transformational. . . 

Do You See What I See?

No, I don't think so. Right now I have three blue marbles dancing around in the lower part of my left eye. They are clustered together until I move my head slightly or blink; then they move. perhaps they scatter. Perhaps they roll, one against another. Perhaps two cling together and the other rotates up or down.

They are blue and bronze marbles: a dark blue center, surrounded, in a diffused way, with red-bronze. One is the size of a contact lens; the other two are the size of a marble, or a very colorful nickel.

How did they get into my eye? They appeared this afternoon, a by-product of a shot of Eylea administered at the Cincinnati Eye Institute. I have been having more-or-less monthly injections for slightly over a year now, to control wet macular bleeding. There were times in the past when I thought I would faint dead away if I had to endure a shot in the eye, but I am now used to it: it goes amazingly quickly, the numbing drops work perfectly to eliminate all sensation except a tiny prick, and the doctor is precise, efficient, and, as I said before, very fast.

Blue marbles in the eye are not a standard outcome of the procedure. I have had them only once before, and the doctor explained, somewhat apologetically, that sometimes air bubbles get into the needle and are transferred unintentionally to the eye. I was enchanted the first time I saw them. After all if you have to get a shot in the eye, isn't it just a bonus to also get treated to a free light show ias part of the bargain?

The last time this happened, there were five marbles; two disappeared sometime in the late evening of the day of the procedure. I still woke up with three but then, suddenly, I noticed they were all gone. I felt bereft.

So, I don't expect my marble game to last much longer; very likely when I wake up in the morning the translucent blue balls will have disappeared, and my vision will be back to what passes as normal for me. In the meantime, I am enjoying twisting and turning and experiencing the effects.  Although they reside in the bottom third of my eye, when I stooped down to get a drink from the water fountain at the institute, they popped upward and "separated" my mouth from the water stream in the fountain. Right now they are floating over my keyboard and covering up some of the letters I need to find. When my husband reached over to kiss me on the couch after we enjoyed a pizza while watching the evening news, I kissed him back and giggled as the balls came between our lips.

A big discovery with this injection: although the balls were shot into my left eye and are presumably swimming around only in that eye, I can close my left eye and still dimly see them with my right eye open! I have no understanding of the neurological connections between the brain and retinas and other parts of the mechanism of eyesight, other than that they are complicated. I don't know how I see what I see right now, but it is entertaining and illuminating.