Writing Reality

  The smartest man I know... I've known many.  That is smart men in my life.  And this declaration does not nor is it intended to take away from all the smartest men or women I've ever known. So, shed your ill-thoughts, if you can. Abandon your jealousy.  Open your mind.  Be mindful for a moment of someone other than yourself, if you please. The smartest man I've known, as far as book learning was my husband.  A degree in botany at a SUNY; then manuevred to Upsala for a degree in psychology.  Then onward to FDU for a masters degree in psychology till there was a family emergency.  He thought he'd never go back to college. I kept reminding him that he should. For his reading capabilities were incredulous. I was always in awe of them. And too, envious at times as I struggled to read. Then in what he thought was his final career destination.  The bottom dropped out. He wondered how I his wife could've predicted the politics two years before. F...

  11/23/2021... The Reicher Holiday Letter... Yes, finally I'm on time...LOL. As the late November wind whips and the delayed leaves fall to the ground in our neighborhood, I await the first sign of snow. I stand outside, begin a run, do outside chores, bring in the mail and sniff the air for the smell of snow. Yes, humans can smell snow. Just like a spring rain approaching. It is awaiting to provide a cleansing of the dreams that need to be refreshed or re-routed. It’s all how you look at it. Really. Oh, the word ‘really’.   Per a few grammar writing geeks. A good writer is not supposed to use the word, ‘really’. I’ll say it again. Really? There is another word I discovered this year, not supposed to be used in writing by writers. I cannot at this moment remember what word that may be.   But I’m sure, it’ll arrive in my mind as I write this Holiday letter to you all. A reading audience. Where to begin this 2021 Reicher Holiday Letter? I’ll start with our smallest r...

                                                                                                       Part One… a year after his first preliminary diagnosis…what I gained. So, this I knew the answer... I knew my answer... for me on November 23 rd , 2019. However, not theirs’...the children. The question was, how were the children going to mourn another loss?  They never knew their biological parents...so now what? One of another set of parents was dying right before their eyes... Recently, I explained this double to quadruple abandonment phenomena to a friend in the medical field and a couple relatives over phone conversations.  To some, it was to help them understand what their children were going t...

  As winter now creeps into our jurisdiction. We fold up our tarps, some head south. I stay put. I don’t know if a human being is supposed to reflect every single day of their lives. But I know I do. I reflect on what is. Sometimes I’m driving, doing a chore, raking or out running miles. As well, I reflect on what was and what may be. Or what I hope to be. I get my ‘aha!’ moments alone most often. Especially nowadays. I do wonder what life would be like if my spouse had not gotten terminally ill and died. Or remained ill, somehow and survived. On the latter part, he would’ve been frustrated and saddened. On the first part, he would’ve been grateful. That I know. I reflect upon the population. The level of ambiguity, uncertainty, and apathy. All of which I personally do not understand completely, even after surviving so much myself. It’s nearly sixty years I’ve existed on this earth. And yet, I still cannot wrap my mind around any disinterest in other’s welfare. Or jealousy for ...

  When it’s a tough road to hoe… Today. Tonight , in fact marks the evening of the end of a portion of our family as we knew it. I had a wicked day of work that day/evening. I had just finished rolling fairly hard in jujitsu class. Leftovers were to be warmed for the night’s meals. This day last year landed on a Friday before the beginning of a new year, a leap year at that. I stood in the ladies’ bathroom/dressing room after my Jujitsu class at Silver Fox BJJ in Butler.   Jess was at the front desk at the time. Enrique was in. Sean was in and he and I had discussed about when he was going into Marine Corps bootcamp. I realized I’d rolled some extra time with the second evening class and couldn’t wait to get home. I held my five-year old phone in my hand trying to see if my husband had messaged me. As I was about to message him, the phone went flying out of my hand landing facedown on the hard tile of the floor. It shattered the screen of the phone.   And for the fi...

The military is a microcosm of society, or it can be. Forty years ago I learned some of what I already knew. As a woman I would have to work harder like other minorities.  Just like them, I'd have to work twice as hard as my white male counterparts, and not complain. I could not even edge near doing something uncouth or considered wrong. Conversely white men had only the basics of living to be concerned with.  God forbid if someone stalked me, attempted an assault or assaulted me, well it was considered either my imagination,  or I was overreacting or I asked for it. Yes, that is the way it was and still is for the majority of women and minorities in this country is.  So, when a man of color is murdered because he was on a training run for his sport. Or people wonder why would people of color, could be so angry as to burn buildings.  As much as it grieves me. I understand why this occurs. I can say the only thing that holds me back from stepping over the line...

 The Most Difficult Thing... One day, about seven years ago as I was performing therapy on a pain patient from a doctor. This elder patient asked me an interesting question. She asked, “What is the most difficult thing you have to do?” I reiterated how I thought she meant the query, wondering exactly what she was asking. For even at age ninety, I’d known her about ten years at this point. I did not want to assume it meant things others may think I didn’t have to, but chose to do.  No, she understood that I ran, because it kept me healthy enough and strong enough to do my job. At this point our two children were approaching their teens. Yes, parenting always has its challenges, but that does ebb and flow. Labor of love. My job, I have to work. But, also a labor of love. Cleaning the house, cooking, food-shopping, all labors of love. And I can say I didn’t find any of them that engrossing on a daily basis to see them as ‘the most difficult thing’ I have to do. However, there was...

Where it all came from... no clue... Perhaps a prayer or two, or one hundred and two every night as I lay in bed as a child, wondering who I should be. And to always make the right decisions to do the right thing. I wanted to be noble, honorable, fix things. You can't fix the world or all its problems.  But you can pitch in to make something somewhere better. I wanted my mother to feel at peace and to feel empowered. Peace I could deliver by being my older brother's keeper, as she desired so. She lost her first two sons. All of it and the lack of proper caring for her made her quite an ill adult. One held in life's ever more fragile state, is where she was for nearly all her years. Empowerment, she needed to see women were as strong as she thought she could be. That's if the cards had landed just right. And since they didn't, I had to show her I could shuffle mine. I could not care to be traditional. Not be concerned what others threw my way, to take me off a...

  The Truth Serum (written 9/1/2020) Recent events, which we may not appreciate. I can say will become our ever more “Truth Serum” about who we think we know.    As well, as who we think we are. I know this to be true. Let me tell you a little story. Between the years 2002 and 2006, I would prepare and run this race across the Mohave Desert in mid-July.    The reason why, is because it was science.    Stay with me. The temps ranged between one hundred eighteen to one hundred thirty-four degrees (about that) usually between ten in the morning till about sundown or so.    At midnight, it could still be over one hundred degrees. You had to run on the shoulders of the roadway/highway (It was mostly sixty MPH. Fact check me if you’d like.)    The macadam was usually for most of the days at that time of year one hundred fifty to two hundred degrees. If you wore those gel running shoes, or those ‘Air’ shoes they may pop, taking away their ...

  When you’re on the spectrum… Yeah, I guess that was a surprise. I always wondered what was wrong with me, till one day in February 2014. I was taking a class for my license, credentials for my practice. As we did our first role-playing. I realized that I didn’t have to pretend to be the HFA (High-Functioning Autism) student. I was creeping the guy out being myself. I hate to say I got some joy out of it. It fascinated me. How easy it was for me to pretend to have HFA. The professor instructed us beforehand that it would feel weird, because we were all ‘normal’. As he explains how to act like a student with HFA, I’m thinking, ‘but I do that… And I do that. And that too.’. I was almost ready to raise my hand and ask, ‘Are you sure…?’ But I held off. During the role-playing exercise, I was in my element. And no one else was. I could hear the professor in the background saying, “I know how you feel.” I heard classmates sounding uncomfortable. And when it was time for my partner...