TheBanyanTree: Calendar Girl

[Margaret R. Kramer]

8/12/05
Hi Love: 
  Get your BUTT home to be with me!!!! I miss you so much! late and got to
get to work. 
 love you 
 Ray

I’m a calendar fanatic.  I don’t know what it is about calendars that
attract me to them.  Maybe it’s the way the days are organized into neat
little rows.  And each square contains what has happened as the days go by
and what could happen as I look at the squares in the future.

How many calendars do I keep?  Well, at work, I have my small handwritten
appointment book.  I also keep my Outlook calendar up to date.

I have my planner, which contains my whole life.  I have all my phone
numbers and addresses in it.  I have notes from centuries ago.  I have
business cards.  And each year I change out the planner and add a new “week
at a glance” into the black leather notebook.

I update the wall calendar hanging on the bulletin board in the kitchen with
the month’s activities.  I also update my home computer’s calendar and then
I’ll get a little ding when an event is coming up.

Besides those calendars, I have a wall calendar at work, a wall calendar in
my home office, and the boys have a wall calendar in their bedroom.

At the end of each month, I look ahead to the next month, and add the events
and appointments to all my calendars.  You’d think I’d get all mixed up or
forget something juggling between all those calendars, but I rarely do.  

As the years pass, I keep my calendars in a drawer.  I have all my planner
“week at a glance” calendars going back several years.  I have all my work
appointment calendars.  

And when I look at my planner “week at a glance” calendar from last year at
this time, I see Ray was in the hospital.  This was the weekend that I
believe was the turning point for him.  He was supposed to come home on the
Friday before Presidents’ Day, but he didn’t feel that well.  He spent that
weekend in the hospital, while I tried to frantically bring to someone’s
attention that he was slipping.  It was Presidents’ Day weekend and none of
the regular staff was around.

Looking back, I don’t think this was a crucial medical mistake.  Yes, it was
a mistake, and maybe if he would have had more immediate and appropriate
treatment of his colitis, he would have lasted a bit longer.  But, now,
thanks to the gift of time, I realize his body was set in a downward spiral
and as one system stabilized, another one would be begin to spin out of
control.

I discussed this with three attorneys and all three said there was no
medical malpractice case.
And no matter what happened, lawsuit or no lawsuit, Ray won’t come back.

I still keep the notes I made when talking to Ray’s doctor in my planner.  I
still have some handwritten notes Ray wrote for me with his social security
number and his hospital room number.  I’ll keep them with me always, even
though they represent such sadness.

I still remember the last call he made to me, telling me his room number had
changed at the hospital.  That was first or second day he was in.  He only
called me when he was feeling halfway decent.  Each day without a phone call
from him was not a good sign.

I always write a few notes in my planner regarding what I want to accomplish
that day.  When I look back on my February 2008 “week at a glance” calendar,
beginning from February 6 through February 24, I wrote “Ray.”  He was always
my top priority, my main accomplishment for each day.