by Kathi Koll
We hugged, and she immediately put me at ease. She was the same Dolores from my childhood. Still beautiful with those mesmerizing blue eyes, quick wit, and engaging personality. She didn’t seem like a nun at all. She was adorable. Not that nuns can’t be adorable, but she just seemed so normal. I don’t know what her hair was like because she was in a full habit, and only her face and hands were visible. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I guess I thought she’d be serious, pious, and terrifying to me. Her warmth filled the room the minute she walked in. My husband, Don, was waiting for her in the living room, sitting in his wheelchair looking straight ahead. He looked handsome despite his disability, dressed in grey slacks, shirt, and sweater. I refused to buy handicap clothes for him and remodeled his favorite things to accommodate dressing him with ease. They were tailored to open in the back and had Velcro down the sides.
Mother Dolores became very quiet and took a spot close to him. I couldn’t hear all the things she was whispering into his ear, but I could see from his face that she was bringing him great comfort. Since he was unable to speak on account of his respirator and his diaphragm being too weak to work even with a Passy Muir valve, I read his lips and interpreted his questions and the conversation back and forth between the two of them. I overheard what Mother Dolores whispered into his ear before she left, “Love doesn’t always end at the altar.” She said a few prayers and kissed my husband on his forehand, which brought a soothing smile to his face.
When we were alone, fresh with the memory of her visit, I asked him what he thought of her. There was no eye rolling. He looked at me with a quiet sensitivity and mouthed, “She’s quite a woman.”
Now living in our new normal, I was finding the challenge of keeping Don happy was also keeping me happy. Every time I had an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary, no matter what it was, I went for it.
One evening at a dinner party in Los Angeles, I sat next to a gentleman who mentioned that President Bush, who had only been out of office a month or so, was going to be in Orange County in a couple of days.
“Well,” I casually said, “if you have the chance to talk to him, please pass on that if he has five extra minutes and would like to come by the house to say hi to Don, that would be wonderful.”
The next thing you know, I receive a call, “President Bush would like to know if you really meant what you said. Can he come by and visit Don?”
“Only if it can be a surprise.”
Of course I wouldn’t have turned him down if it hadn’t been, but the thought of a surprise was so much more fun. The plans were quickly put into motion. Within the hour, my home was being swept by the Secret Service. Keeping them out of Don’s view was a challenge in itself. I said to one of the men, “When you go into our room, my husband is going to get suspicious that a strange man in a suit is here. Can you take off your jacket and tie, and I’ll tell him you’re from the air-conditioning company to check out our system?”
“How are you going to explain my gun?” He had a point.
* * *
Excitement was building as the visit was quickly upon us. I told Don that an old friend was coming by to say hi and asked him to guess who it was going to be. The guessing game was fun in itself, and I knew there was no way in a million years he’d guess President Bush.
The big moment suddenly arrived. Don was settled in our family room ready to greet his “old friend.” The Secret Service were out of his view but were signaling me through the window how far the president was. Fifteen minutes. Ten minutes. Eight minutes. Our home is on the water on a small island. The front door is on a side street, but the Secret Service felt the safest way for the president to arrive was by the alley. The president was coming to my house, and rather than arriving by way of the front garden with my beautiful roses, he was going to arrive beside the trash cans.
One of the Secret Service men gave me a three-minute signal.
“I think I heard the doorbell,” I said to Don, “I’ll be right back with your guest.”
I stood in the alley with a number of agents, the rest surrounding our house, not knowing what to expect. All of a sudden a line of motorcycles turned the corner from the street adjacent to the alley. Cycle after cycle, then police car after police car, then a black Suburban that stopped a few feet from me, followed by another Suburban and more police cars and motorcycles. My heart was pounding. Will he know who I am? I was thinking. Of course he will, I quickly thought. He’s coming to my house, for Christ’s sake.
The president quickly jumped out of the car, gave me a hug, and said, “How’s he doing? Is it still a surprise?”
“Yes,” I answered nervously. “He has no idea who is coming, the only other time I’ve surprised him was when I got Cindy Crawford to come over.” The president immediately said, “Oh no, Cindy Crawford? He’s not going to want to see me.”
The president walked into our home, and as he walked from behind Don, he put his hand on Don’s shoulder and said, “Hi, buddy, how ya doing?”
Don quickly mouthed, “Great, how are you doing?”
For a second it passed through my mind that Don might think I had paid an impostor and wouldn’t believe he was really President Bush. The president sat down in front of Don and instead of staying the agreed five minutes, he stayed for forty-five. I was amazed how easily the conversation flowed back and forth.
I finally asked the president, “How do you know what Don’s saying?”
“I can read his lips,” he answered.
“Oh boy, you’re not leaving. You just found yourself a new job,” I laughed.
Daughter Jennifer, son Kevin, George W. Bush, Don, Kathi, daughter-in-law Melissa, and daughter Brooke
As the president was in our home, news quickly spread throughout our neighborhood that something big was going on at the Koll house. As President Bush left, there were close to two hundred neighbors in the alley behind the Secret Service cheering him on. The president had a big smile on his face, and just as quickly as he had arrived, he was gone. I walked back into the house to find Don grinning from ear to ear.
He mouthed, “Where in the world did you find him?”
While I loved big surprises that I knew would make Don’s day, they were still special occasions and not the normal everyday routine. I still wanted to maintain the quiet, private moments, too, which required a lot of creativity with all the staff we needed to manage Don’s medical requirements.
Tears welled up in my eyes with the memories of our little rituals from before. I loved our evenings when Don would sit on the edge of our tub, and together we would share our day as I relaxed in the warm water of the tub kittishly covered with bubbles. Sometimes we talked and talked and talked. Sometimes he slipped in. I wanted one more chance to have that easy, low-key evening. Please God. Why not? Yes, we can do it again, I thought. But what if he rejected my new crazy idea? Will I feel stupid, weird, creepy? The what-ifs were a constant and often unwelcome companion in our lives.
“Don, how about taking a bubble bath with me tonight?” I whispered in his ear. His smell and the touch of his skin against the tip of my nose still sent me into a little tizzy.
It was strange how embarrassed I felt asking him this, but life was so different now, and the thought of being naked in front of him was making me feel very uncomfortable. It had been a long time. He’s my husband, for Christ’s sake, I reasoned, trying to convince myself it was normal even though it felt oh so weird. Of course, he was game. He was always game. Life didn’t stop being an adventure for him, and my ideas were still his amusement.
The nurses had become part of my family, which helped with my lack of privacy. I did get a little bit of a kick out of the fact that no one seemed surprised with this new idea of mine. Anna, one of the respiratory therapists didn’t give a second thought about it and changed Don’s tube to an extra-long one that would stretch from the side of our tub, under the door, and into our bedroom where his machine stood next to our bed. Gettin
g through the door was another matter. I could operate his wheelchair with the skill of a concert violinist, but there wasn’t a half-inch to spare to get him through the opening. If it didn’t work, I was ready to tear out the doorframe.
OK, the scene wasn’t quite as it used to be, but I had my husband all alone again in my private little sanctuary. I talked and talked and talked. He didn’t take his eyes off of me as he eased my embarrassment with the charm of his schoolboy smile. I don’t think he cared what I was talking about. He just seemed happy I had reinvented this sacred part of our relationship.
Even in our own little world, I was still unsure of letting Don see me, but I stood up, arms stretched out as bubbles slid down my side. My added little hip movement brought a big smile to the surprised look on Don’s face.
“What do you think?” I asked with all the guts I could muster.
I could almost hear him purr as he mouthed, “I love you.”
“Do you think I’ve gained any weight?” I stupidly asked.
The slight hesitation before his answer was louder than an announcer at Dodger Stadium.
“Yes,” he mouthed.
“How many pounds?” What a dumb question, I immediately thought.
“Fifteen.”
I mustn’t have heard him right, so I repeated my question and put words in his mouth, “Five?”
With a silly little smile and a slight shake of his head he mouthed, “No, fifteen.”
I pulled up my towel and with a wicked little laugh said, “Hey, you better think about what you say to me. I can unplug you at any time!”
I could hear him laughing hysterically with just the expression of his face. And what do you know, he was spot on.
Early one evening while I was cuddled up to Don watching a movie, I confessed, “Don, I don’t know what you’re going to think, but I have a question.”
I’m not sure if it was the tone of my voice or the expression on my face, but Don raised his eyebrows and looked at me with his “What now?” expression. He was generally game for any of my ideas—going to the movies, exploring museums, surprising a friend by showing up at their house, but my new idea was quite a stretch, and I needed a lot of nerve to ask. “Oh?” he mouthed.
“Well…” I was astonished how embarrassed I was to actually be asking him. “What do you think if we make love again?”
The look on his face was somewhere between surprised and beaming with pride that I wanted to be with him. “Sure,” he mouthed.
“OK, I’m going to talk to the doctor about it tomorrow.” I don’t think Dr. Shpiner had ever dealt with a caregiver quite like me, and I knew this was going to throw him for a loop.
Our home was rather sophisticated, the first “big girl” house I had ever lived in, and for some reason, going into our library often made Doctor Shpiner say, “I always feel like I’m going to get in trouble when I come into this room; it’s so adult.” It was the room where all our discussions took place about Don’s life—good or bad. But most of the discussions seemed to get worse, not better. We were always fighting a new set of challenges, our own war room.
“Well, Dr. Shpiner, I have a new idea, and I think I’m going to need your help. I’ve talked to Don, and we’ve decided we want to make love again. He’s game and I’m game, but I think we’re going to need a little help from you.” Oh, the look on his face. How surprised and utterly uncomfortable he was. I think he just wanted to crawl out of my home as quickly as possible and pretend this crazy new idea had never come up.
He took his time in answering me. I’m sure he was gathering his thoughts about just how to approach this. “I had a feeling this would come up one day; I just didn’t know when. I wasn’t prepared for it today.”
“OK, this is really embarrassing,” I said, “but what the heck? My entire life is an open book now with absolutely no privacy.”
“Kathi, I’ve got to give this some thought. There are ways to do it, but it’s going to be tricky. I need to have a meeting with some of the doctors at UCLA about this.”
I was astounded. He was working with us, and this was going to happen. He said he’d get back to me within a few days.
The days slipped by, and the subject didn’t come up. Finally, I asked, “Dr. Shpiner, have you talked to some of the doctors to figure out what Don and I need to do about our situation? You know what I mean, right?”
“Ahh, yes, Kathi,” he answered rather hesitantly. “I had a meeting with Don’s team, and we’ve come up with a plan. It’s going to be quite an undertaking. As you know, Don has a catheter, so his urologist will have to come and remove it and will stand outside the door. Don’s heart Doctor will also be in the hallway to monitor for any problems that might come up. I will be in the hallway to make sure there are no pulmonary problems, and another internist will be there in case of an emergency. Along with the team, there will also be Don’s nurse, respiratory therapist, and an aide.”
“Fantastic. We’re in.”
“You are. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” I answered. “When?”
“Ah…I needed to get your initial thoughts. To see if you really wanted to do this with all the challenges accompanying your idea.” He was clearly outside his comfort zone. “I’ll get back to you. I need to have another meeting with the team.”
Oh my, we were full steam ahead. I couldn’t wait.
A few days later, Dr. Shpiner called. He said he had met with the other doctors, and, while they were all empathetic, their final conclusion was that it would be taking too big of a chance with Don’s health. There was just too much at risk, and the chance of infection could be very dangerous. I was disappointed but understood.
I shared the answer with Don. He just looked at me with his cute smile and mouthed, “Oh well. I love you for thinking about it.”
I saw Dr. Shpiner for the first time a year after Don passed away at my annual physical. It truly felt like a reunion of sorts. We started reminiscing about the six and a half years we had shared. Tears came to my eyes. His too, I think. We had shared so many life-changing moments with Don, both happy and sad. I reminded him of the day I wanted one more “roll in the hay.”
“You want to hear the truth, Kathi?”
“Yes,” I answered with a startled question brewing inside of me. “What?”
“Kathi, there weren’t any meetings with the team of doctors. I thought the bigger I made the story the less likely you would be to continue on with your idea. I should have known better. You never give up.” He looked at me with the compassion of a man who understood my quest. “I felt you were setting yourself up for disappointment and decided it was best for you to always have your last good memory be from before Don’s stroke, not one that was a recipe for failure and sadness.”
He was a wise man, and I’m so happy he squelched my idea. In the meantime, Don felt loved, felt wanted, and he knew I was willing to go to great lengths to be with him. He also probably knew it wouldn’t happen, but the energy I went through over the idea was pure bliss for him. And entertainment.
11
REWARDING REWARDS
“I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”
—Thomas Carlyle
Don often said to me, “The three most important events that shaped my early life were being a Boy Scout and later an Eagle Scout, graduating from Stanford University, and flying the F-86F Sabre Jet as a fighter pilot in the US Air Force.”
He was never one to accept awards, but when I received a call one day from the Boy Scouts asking if Don would consider being honored by receiving their highest honor, Distinguished Eagle Scout, I knew he’d be elated. When I asked how he felt, there was no hesitation; he mouthed a resounding, “Yes.” We now had another goal to reach together, and watching his enthusiasm was thrilling. Looking forward to this night really gave us both a spring in our step—and he couldn’t even walk.
Don’s incredible reputation of philanthropy and service to others
earned him the Distinguished Eagle Scout honor, but before anything could bear his name, he had one last goal to accomplish: Raise one million dollars for Boy Scouts of America. The amount was originally lower, but taking the easy path was never Don’s way. Naively, I had no idea how much planning would need to go into this and to what extent I would be involved. All I knew was that I wanted the evening to be one of the happiest nights of Don’s life. A group of Don’s business associates and friends formed a committee to help raise the money for the Boy Scouts. Once the team was put together, off we went. I toured the Boy Scouts’ Outdoor Education Center in Orange County, California, and was anxious to show Don photos of the various buildings, the replica of an old mine shaft where the Scouts learned about mining and geological materials, the pool, the zip line, and so many other opportunities offered to young people at the center, ending with Snake Mountain.
“I don’t want my name on a building,” Don mouthed, eyeing the map and photos I’d taken. “I want the mountain.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, stunned. “The mountain?”
“Yes, I want each young person to have a goal and feel accomplishment in attaining it,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. “I want them to say, ‘I climbed Koll Mountain and reached the top.’” It was so Don to never settle for anything less than the extraordinary.
Months and months went into planning the event. The whole evening was a lovely cocktail hour and dinner, the tickets for which contributed to Don’s one-million-dollar goal to get his name on a mountain. Of course, the most daunting part was raising the money, but once the invites were sent and phone calls were made, the dollars started to roll in. I’m only guessing that when people looked at the invitation, which was an exact copy of Don’s actual Boy Scout card, they saw it as a way to show their love and appreciation to a man who had helped them in so many ways. The outpouring of love didn’t stop with donations and tickets purchased, though. Part of planning and executing the event was finding people to donate their time, services, and expertise. It truly took a village to get the event off the ground, but with the help of some wonderful people, we were able to make it a memorable night for Don, and everyone else, too.