Tag Archives: saying goodbye

a grey day with a flood of memories

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The way we were, 1981. Rome, Italy.

I told my readers a while back that I recently lost a friend I have had since I was 11 years old. At that time I hadn’t really been sure how to talk about it and I still don’t know quite how to talk about it but I know I need to. I need to process this loss and write it out.

It has been about a month and I miss my friend Anna.

Although as middle-aged adult women, we were thousands of miles apart, we were only ever a phone call or text message away.

We’re all getting to that age where occasionally we get the calls that someone is gone and when that someone is someone who’s been in your life since you were 11 years old, where do you go in your head?

The memories are still flying at a fast and furious pace. She and I met at the Tennis Farm at Shipley in Bryn Mawr. We were Mrs. P’s worst tennis players ever but she loved us just the same.

She was the reason I went to Shipley.

And throughout the years we were still connected to each other. That’s a gift until you realize that they’re not ever going to call you again.

I realize that it was just her time on this planet was finished, and now I have another angel watching me. But still…So many memories.

I remember JDA and SDA. The Junior and Senior Dancing Assemblies, respectively. They were held at the Merion Tribute House in Merion, and for all the years that we had to go down there our parents got lost either coming or going, every single time. These were the young people special events that they sent us to in those days to learn manners, and how to interact with the opposite sex and dance, and be polite and politely social. And it was managed onsite by this harridan in a gold lamé dress with a bullet bra named Mrs. Farber. And we can’t forget her 10 pounds of Aquanet that kept her hair in place.

We used to love the breaks the bands took when we would sit in the seating areas in this gorgeous old house with our friends, David and Kurt, and put stale pretzels down the heating vents, giggling the whole time. We lost our friend David a couple of years ago to a freak hit and run accident in Florida. Oh, and did I mention these events were black tie? I think we were what in 8th grade when we started attending? Because of these dances, for a few years I felt like I had a lifetime supply of crinkly taffeta skirts.

Other memories I have are like taking the Paoli Local to Philadelphia, and going to the Rusty Scupper in Society Hill for lunch on weekends once in a while. Or Pizzeria Uno.

Or walking up Morris Avenue, (when you could still do that safely) into Bryn Mawr, and going to KatyDid and the bookstore next-door to look for Christmas presents.

Or going to the movies. We went to lots of movies. I saw every Star Wars movie with her until we became adults and every James Bond movie. And it is because of her that I experienced the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight at the Bryn Mawr Movie Theatre for the first time as a teenager.

The Devon Horse Show… when it was still old school Devon. We bought our first antique prints from the print lady who was there once upon a time. We hunted for treasures at the Bryn Mawr Hospital Thrift Shop booth and had Devon fudge when the carefully guarded recipe was still made properly and had lemon sticks and greasy Devon burgers.

Flash forward to mini term in Italy senior year of Shipley. The hotel they put us in when we got to Venice at the end of the trip was called the Hotel Canal. It was all hard surfaces and there was this little German kid with his parents there who is about five and the kid was the devil and his name was Damian. We got a total giggle out of that. This is of course the hotel that Anna famously sprained her ankle in because she bought really high heels at one of the bazaars I think in Florence. She wanted to wear them to dinner and stumbled. Miraculously, she did not really do anything other than a sprain. It was just a slight sprain, and nothing was broken, but you know bruised egos a teenage girl. Amusingly the hotel is still in existence and sounds like it hasn’t changed since we were there.

On this trip, the students got shoved in the lesser hotels and hostel type situations and the alumnae traveling with us got the good hotels. To this day I think our parents probably paid for the alumnae to sit in good hotels.

The best place on that trip was the Pensione Adria in Florence. And that was the place were another classmate who passed away around COVID19, who flooded the room she was staying in with people by not paying attention to where the shower was running that was in the room.

In Rome, we were in a convent, and I think it was called the Sisters of Atonement. It was right near Vatican City. And we went to a private mass which was about 100 people on Ash Wednesday that year, because my father’s Saint Joe’s Prep friend, the late Cardinal John Foley, arranged it. It was our Pope encounter, Pope John Paul II and it was pretty memorable. He was right there blessing us all with holy water. And we were pretty close to the Pope. I still remember how serene his face was. In today’s world, I don’t think we would have been allowed to get that close.

But I don’t want everything I’m writing to be sad, but I’m honestly just sad right now because I just wasn’t expecting this. Death is not kind and death is not a gentle thing and sometimes we have advanced warning that somebody’s leaving, but a lot of times we just don’t.

I had a memory again last night about one time when we were in high school, and she wanted us to go to this kid’s toga party in Bryn Mawr. She even made herself a toga out of a bedsheet, but I refused to wear a toga. It was winter and so freaking cold and I think even snowy. We went to the house we knocked on the door. The door opened and 100° heat came pouring out because it was the middle of winter along with a female underclasswoman, chasing her (we guessed) at that point ex boyfriend screaming crying (this couple was all drama all of the time) ….both attired in bed sheet togas. I looked at my friend Anna and I asked if she really wanted to go to this party and she looked at me, shook her head, and we got back in the car and left.

Then there was the Super Bowl party for the Eagles. We went to a party on Fishers Road in Bryn Mawr. A nice guy who was a neighbor of sorts to me, and we knew absolutely no one there because he and his friends went to like Archbishop Carroll, Saint Joe’s Prep, and all the Catholic schools that we didn’t know anyone at. The Eagles lost. Our first Super Bowl party was a bust. And ironically, I have gone to very few since.

And then there was the Phillies when they won the world championship in the fall of 1981. All of our friends were cutting school to go to the parade and we weren’t allowed.

Then there all the adult memories. Calling to tell me her father had died. Eulogizing her mother at their church the day of the funeral. Texting each other at Christmas when we would watch Hallmark Christmas movies and text each other about which ones we liked.

Essentially, I have almost 50 years worth of memories with this woman. I hadn’t seen her in several years at this point, but we were still connected. She was one of the first people we told after my mother and sister when my husband and I got engaged.

We have these people in our lives, and there is that saying it’s something like people are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. She was a lifetime person, and it just wasn’t enough time. A lot of you reading this, are classmates and other friends of mine who didn’t know Anna. And I am sorry that you didn’t. To those of us, who did, she will forever be our Anna banana. And we loved her.

If I hadn’t met her, there are so many of I never would have met, including my husband.

So here’s to Anna. Thanks for all of the years of friendship.

Anna Klauder Nupson, 61 of Ribera, NM died June 24, 2024 after a brief illness at home.

Anna grew up in Bryn Mawr, PA and graduated from the Shipley School in 1981. She went onto Amherst College in Amherst, MA where she graduated in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts in American/United States Studies and Civilization.

Among the happiest years of her life were spent between Shipley and Amherst. She had a deep appreciation and reverence of American history and the theater arts. While in high school she was active in theater productions and after college she was a member of the Footlighters Theater in Berwyn, PA as well as being part of the Windsor Court Players, which was based in Narberth, PA out of Narberth Presbyterian Church and founded by a close friend and classmate from Shipley.

Anna eventually decided she wished to move to an area of the United States, for which she had a special affinity. This was the beautiful and majestic American Southwest. Anna’s mother was a native New Mexican who was born in Clovis. Anna purchased a modest ranch and settled in Ribera.

Anna embraced New Mexico with her whole heart and soul and loved the wild beauty of her adopted state. She settled into ranch life, and also loved creating a life which was also full of rescuing dogs and horses.

Anna is survived by her family and friends, who mourn the loss of a gentle soul who has gone home to God far too soon. Anna will be forever loved and missed.

Memorial donations can be sent to Folds of Honor (https://foldsofhonor.org/) and The Jewish Federations of North America (https://www.jewishfederations.org/)

Fly with the angels, Anna.

time passages

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My husband loves Al Stewart’s music. I have always liked it as well. So every once on Spotify, I turn on some Al Stewart. One of his songs is running in a loop through my brain. Has been since I received some news that kind of upended me yesterday and today. The song is Time Passages. So that is why the video is in this post. Another song too has been in that loop. Supertramp’s Lord Is It Mine. Both my husband and I also love Supertramp. Also added a favorite Genesis song and a Steve Winwood too. Might as well do the full music I liked then and today. Music helps.

But…..Damn my age is showing. The music is all from “back in the [proverbial] day”. And this really has nothing to do with what I have been trying to write since this morning. It’s like if I write it out, it becomes more real. Music cushions the thoughts.

I have been sitting in front of my computer screen. I know what I want to say, but have been somewhat stuck in my own head since last evening when I received completely unexpected news.

One of my favorite people, a friend who feels like he’s been around literally since almost forever has died. Forever meaning I think we met circa 1976 or so. I know this is something I have to write about because it just needs to leave my brain. The memories need to settle and go back to happy, not swirl in my brain like an unhappy tornado.

Yes, a lot of tears have been quietly shed today.

He was hit by a car while walking. Just a freak accident a fluke. He wasn’t sick, he loved his life, was in the prime of his life, nice career, nice man. The kind of person you want in your life until we are really old and gray, only that won’t happen now.

Somewhere in a trunk I have photos from when we were teenagers and older. So many memories. Damn it David, I am not grown up enough for this.

I will start with one a friend reminded me of last night. Sitting in the middle of my parents’ driveway and David shouting “To the airport and hop on it!” when a VW rabbit went by. And that day multiple VW rabbits drove down our then quiet road. It was a hot car then. We laughed and laughed.

Another memory sitting in my parents’ library with him and three or four other friends. Don’t know why. It may have been after JDA (Junior Dancing Assemblies.)

Ahh what were the Junior Dancing Assemblies (“JDA”)? They were formal by invitation dances. The Senior Dancing Assemblies (‘SDA”) followed. They were held at the Merion Tribute House in Merion Station. Every time it was my father’s turn to drive us kids, he got lost. I still get lost going there.

Girls in long dresses or long formal tartan skirts and an appropriate top. Note that appropriate those days was NOT short skirts or skimpy tops or even spaghetti straps or strapless. Somewhere I have the original invitation that had the dress code. It was a tradition starting to wane by the time we went. Sometimes it was a bad cover band, other times a D.J.

A few years ago, David and I had some serious giggles over JDA and SDA and that Gold Lamé dragon Mrs. Farber. She was the one who ran the dances. Seriously, she seemed to have an endless supply of Gold Lamé dresses that had these almost bullet bra tops and didn’t move anymore than her Aqua Net cemented hair do. She was terrifying. She dragged me into the service kitchen at Merion Tribute one night and called my mother on the kitchen phone to report that I wouldn’t dance with someone she picked out for me to dance with. Fortunately, David and another friend rescued me. I remember coming home that night and my mother wondering why THAT woman called her. And of course a resounding chorus of “Don’t do that again, you were lucky to be invited.”

We would camp out during JDA and SDA intermissions or breaks and hangout on the window seats at Merion Tribute House and the other seating areas and shove stale pretzels down the heater grates as we drank our slightly warm and slightly flat Coca Colas out of Dixie Cups. During those intermissions we would think up grand schemes never executed to torture Mrs. Farber. Mostly we wondered how her bras were so pointy, how big was that closet of Gold Lamé dresses, and what was actually in her hair.

And then there were our mischief night escapades. One year we took apart a split rail fence and created an obstacle course on the road. We almost got caught that year as we also toilet papered several trees. Another year someone (David) magically re-painted the tops of someone’s wrought iron fence from gaudy gold to black I think it was.

Another thing we did once in a while? Roaming around the back of the estate known as Dolobran in Haverford. Why? So we could peek in the windows of the ballroom. It was so cool. At that point I believe there was just one tiny old lady living there. That was back when said little old lady gave me a $20 bill for Halloween one year back then. I had dressed my dog up as a cat to go trick or treating.

During the high school years we all went to different schools. So there were parties at Kip’s house or Adam’s house. Then there were the Philadelphia Charity Ball Years. David rescued me a couple of times when I did not have a date and my mother said I could not go with “just friends.” So he really wasn’t my escort, but covered for me and another friend so we could go.

Eventually we all went our separate ways and wouldn’t see each other as often. While I stayed pretty much in the Philadelphia area, David and other friends were spread out all over the east coast, out west, down south. So then there was Christmas.

Christmas Eve for decades meant one Christmas party in particular for many of us in Gladwyne. So I always saw David and his family there. When we were younger, we would be with the kids downstairs in a big rec room for the most part. As we got older we migrated upstairs and would take over the hosts’ study.

Then at some point, we all stopped going. In recent years, David and I would connect by phone, email, and like so many others Facebook. We would occasionally see each other when he was up from Florida to see family still in the area.

David did things liked sent me little gifts sometimes for no reason. A couple of years ago it was a set of whimsical kitchen towels he thought I would like.

The last time we connected was his birthday….barely a month ago.

Hopping around: I remember when his mother died. April, 1978. Not too long from now is the anniversary. I remember when he called me. She was the first parent of someone I knew who passed away. His dad remarried a few years later, and his father and stepmother and siblings and family and friends all survive him. His stepmother is truly lovely. And I remember that was not easy coming into the world of three boys of various ages who had lost their mother.

My head is calmer now as I have written down some of these memories and allowed the memories of laughter wash over me. Today has been full of phone calls from some of our old friends, which is comforting for all of us. It gives us a chance to quietly remember someone who was just a wonderful person, one of our life long friends.

Telling my mother was no fun. She always adored David. My past is her past here. And his stepmother and father are still alive and such nice people. She said to me no parent wants to outlive their children.

Now David wasn’t someone who would want us to be endlessly sad. So I am celebrating him right now with a post traveling down a meandering multi-decade memory lane. The meandering includes music. What I have shared plus a favorite playlist from Spotify.

David gave his friends a precious gift one last time. And that gift is allowing some of us to reconnect. We will honor that gift and remember him. (Umm he also gave me his grandmother’s pound cake recipe and THAT is priceless.)

David, we will all miss you, and when I have my next glass of Rosé, I will lift a glass in your honor. Thanks for the memories, but it just wasn’t time enough.

The older I get, the more I realize loss is not for sissies.

Goodbye, old friend.

remembering beth

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beth3On Wednesday morning a text came in from a life long friend, Liza:

“I am not sure if anyone posted anything, mom passed away this morning at 5:30 a.m. Such a relief to see the suffering over.”

I don’t text and drive, but I pulled over to the side of the road for a few minutes.

She was gone. Beth was gone, and wow, I knew it was coming but it was so fast.

She had that kind of Leukemia that killed my friend Jim McCaffrey and another friend’s dad.

Beth knew my parents long before I was born, so I have literally known her my whole life. And she made me laugh and smile for 51 years and I  think that is pretty cool. What made me laugh about were just life things you had to be there at the time to get. She had a zany sense of humor and the most wonderful laugh and a smile that lit up her eyes. She even made me laugh when I was younger about her mother-in-law, who quite frankly was a bit terrifying to me. (She was the older person you never, ever wanted to disturb!)

A lot of memories growing up are tied to her and her kids. They introduced us to Avalon, and when I wrote the post where I spoke about the log cabin on 13th street that once belonged to Woodrow Wilson? That was their house at the beach.

They were one of the two families we knew when we were little who had an English Springer Spaniel. It was definitely because of the one they had when I was about 11 that we ended up getting out first of a long line of Springers.

She was also my Confirmation sponsor.

beth 4In May I had a belated birthday present thanks to Liza: I got to spend the afternoon with the two of them.  I made lunch and we spent the afternoon on my deck and in the garden.  It was such a nice afternoon.

I have memories of Beth and her family going back to when I was the littlest of girls in Society Hill. I remember their house in Ambler and talcum powder mysteriously getting all over the third floor and when they moved to Blue Bell. Avalon memories of 13th street, looking for stars with my father and her husband Ed and all the kids and Beth and my mother on the beach at night. The sound of how quiet the sand was at night when we jumped on an off the lifeguard stands. The merry sound of Beth’s laugh in the darkness as she told a funny story.   And American Pie by Don McLean on the 8 Track in Avalon….And fireworks around the pool in Blue Bell

Beth has raised remarkable children and taught all the children who weren’t hers, (but loved her like we were) to be better human beings and to stand up for what we believed in. Yes, including me. She is one of the best most truly kind and Christian people I have ever met. I have loved every conversation with her (and over the past year or so we have had quite a few I will always treasure.)beth1

As her children prepare for this final goodbye, the upcoming funeral, I am sad, I admit I have cried like a baby over this. But I am grateful for having known her and inspired by her capacity to love other human beings.

Beth, among other things, was the longest standing docent at The Philadelphia Zoo.  She was also a volunteer and volunteer coordinator at St. Johns Hospice in Philadelphia.

So Beth this is for you, with love always…only love.  And for Liza, Andy, Martha, and Joe for sharing her with all the other kids too all these years.

Gone but will never be forgotten.

sad

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Today is a sad day for me.  Today I had to say good-bye to one of my critters.  A little red-brown dachshund named Mr. Peanut.

Mr. Peanut entered my life with the oversized name of Eugene.  He was one of Bill Smith’s boys from Main Line Animal Rescue a few years ago.

When I rescued him his story was a sad one – he had been in a fire and abandoned by his humans.  As the story goes a kind fireman bought him to MLAR.  A miniature dachshund, he was even smaller when I rescued him.  And he had never had basic veterinary attention.  He was in fact, seven pounds and a few ounces and for his size, he should have been heavier.

He quickly wormed his way into my heart and the hearts of others in my life both friends and family.  He was a smart little guy and very vocal for lack of a better description.  He used to make this happy sound we called  “mrrrrrrrr”  .  My friend Barb always thought he would be a great children’s book.  Unfortunately, Mr. Peanut and I never got around to writing it.

As Mr. Peanut aged he lost both his hearing and his eyesight.  Yet for a good long while he adapted.  But in the middle of the summer he had a seizure and was never the same since.  The past few weeks he started to slide more and more down hill, barely able to walk, and when he did walk it was mostly in circles.  And although he was eating, he was losing weight by the day.

Today he told us it was time to go.  If you listen to your pets, they do tell you.  It is heart breaking when you accept what they cannot say in words.

I don’t think losing a dog ever gets easier, and I have cried buckets today, and will probably do so for a while.  But I always promise my pets I will never keep them around just for me, and I have never broken that promise.  Today however, was really hard.

Maybe this is not the best time to be writing this post because emotionally I feel so raw, but he was such an awesome little dog, he deserved a shout out.

So now my little friend has gone to the rainbow bridge.  I miss him already.

A final note is to remember that there are a lot of wonderful dogs like Mr. Peanut who need loving homes.  Don’t shop….adopt.  And support local rescues like Main Line Animal Rescue.

Mr. Peanut was 14.  He had a lot of fans.  Including a very special reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer who is one of my mentors.  This is what she wrote today…read with tissues: