A Merry Ghost Upon My Pillow

By Elizabeth Kizer

This is a love story, but more than that. Life plays tricks on people. Carefully made plans at times turn out to have different results than what is expected. One may choose a path only to find it presents interruptions or delays or disappointments, perhaps even setting the person on an entirely different path.

A Merry Ghost speaks to the ordinary circumstances that may change any persons life. The memoir recounts one persons emotional experiences ranging from the heights of happiness to the depths of sadness and depression. It offers suggestions for dealing with the various crises that people encounter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469134215

Elizabeth Kizer

During her twenty-six year career teaching at the university level, Dr. Kizer published numerous articles of an academic nature. As well she adapted a novel, “The Women’s Room” by Marilyn French, and directed the Readers Theatre productions which included one for a national profession conference. In addition to this memoir she has also written an autobiography. Now retired from her career at the University on Missouri, Dr. Kizer and her daughter Jill live in Cedar Park, a suburb of Austin,Texas.

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Copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth Kizer.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4691-3420-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-3421-5

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER ONE  THREE ROSES

CHAPTER TWO  THE SILVER LINING

CHAPTER THREE  LOVE STORY

CHAPTER FOUR  WHY DO I LOVE THEE

CHAPTER FIVE  THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY

CHAPTER SIX  THE LONG HOT SUMMER

CHAPTER SEVEN  THE FOURTH ROSE

CHAPTER EIGHT  IF I SHOULD EVER LEAVE YOU

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.

Camelot, from Lerner and Lowe’s stage production, came to be used following his death as a metaphor to represent the years of President Kennedy’s term of office. I did not think of my experience as fitting the Camelot metaphor until the end, but as I stood on a balcony overlooking the Autumn leaves blazing on the hillside, Camelot came to mind. Perhaps we all have a Camelot moment. I don’t know about that. I do know about mine, and my desire to share it.

This is my story. It is a love story, the story as I know it and remember it. It is told from my perspective and, rather than always my first hand observation, information that was shared with me.

If that is all it is, it might be interesting only to a few people who have known me. But it is more than that. It is a tribute, and a discussion of coping with the vicissitudes of life. A statement of faith, it respectfully offers insights to those who face, or will face, similar experiences.

Replete with themes such as those explored in gender studies, this is a reflection on issues that affect the relationships between men and women, and women and women. It might well be used as a supplementary reading text for courses in interpersonal communication, gender communication, women’s studies, crises management, autobiographical literature, popular culture, and like studies.

I have recounted this story many times, sometimes sharing it with students in my Interpersonal Communication class to provide illustrations of relationship concepts. Many have encouraged me to put my story in book form. Now in the fullness of time I have been able to so.

My purpose has been to share the values of open communication, supportive relationships, and courage, as well as to pay tribute to the special people who stood by me through difficult times. It is a statement of faith, with respectful suggestions for those who face or will face similar experiences. As fresh as when it happened, still it is imprinted with the aura of the Seventies and evokes some of the values and attitudes of that era.

Dr. Hans Zinsser, a prominent bacteriologist, was stricken with leukemia at the peak of his career. During the remaining months of his life, he wrote a series of sonnets that were published posthumously in a book entitled Spring, Summer and Autumn. Zinsser writes that upon his death, all that would be left of him would be the merry part of me within your mind.

With this effort I am paying tribute to the merry part that resides in my mind and also expressing my gratitude to:

Jill Davis, for being my ever present support;

Becky Leonard, for faithfully standing beside me;

Mary Wise, for sharing her memories;

Pat Conganelli, for being a best friend;

Peter and Rachel Kizer, for compassion and understanding;

Carol and Paul Brownlow, for support in times of travail.

CHAPTER ONE

Three Roses

Nothing indicated this was to be a day remarkably different from any others. But it was. The knock at the door prefaced a dramatic change in my life.

A page already had been turned. After an unhappy more than twenty-one year marriage, I obtained a divorce. With my ambition to earn a Ph.D. degree, Purdue University beckoned me and I resigned from my public school teaching position in Texas. Jill, my youngest daughter, accompanied me to Indiana. Together, Jill and I had settled into our home on the Purdue campus. She was about to enter the first grade. Her three older siblings remained in Texas, the youngest at 17.

Since Indiana touches the southern border of Lake Michigan, I knew that the state had a colder climate than we were accustomed to and would require adjustments for us Texans. Even so, with the wretched weather that January at the start of our third semester at Purdue, I had a very sore throat. Rather than canceling classes I taught, I conscientiously adhered to the schedule. By the time I finished presenting a lecture while sucking on cough drops and talking for a total of two and a half hours over two consecutive class periods, I could barely speak. My throat hurt so badly that I was unable to sleep that night.

Suffering with laryngitis and bronchitis and a fever of 102° I returned the next day to attend classes I was enrolled in. But I felt so sick that I allowed myself to be persuaded to skip the class and go home to bed. Friends promised to help. Eliza Solender took notes for me in one course, Sheryl Russell taped lectures for me in another, and Becky Leonard agreed to substitute for me in the two sections of the basic course I taught.

As I hiked back to my apartment, I stopped at the Health Center for medical attention.

When initially arriving on campus, I had been surprised to learn that all Purdue offices were closed during the noon hour, but I hadn’t imagined that would apply to the Health Center as well. Too sick to wait for offices to reopen following the lunch break, I trudged the rest of the way home and collapsed on the living room couch. To restore health, I slept through the next three days as though I were drugged, rousing only to feed Jill peanut butter and honey sandwiches or bowls of cereal. I desired no food myself. Playing over and over, even as I slept, were the Dory Previn albums I recently borrowed from friends and office mates, Becky and Rita Kroeber.

Becky, my friend and current office mate, was worried about me. Graduate students are a support group accustomed to spending time together daily. Nice people kept contacting Becky to ask about Jill and me, and kindly offering to help. In turn Becky was most insistent in calling Jill to ask how we were and what we needed. As well, when Jill got home from school each afternoon, she dutifully phoned Becky to report our condition.

I had been ill since the Tuesday, the 28th, and by noon Friday Becky decided she needed to make a personal appearance. She wanted to see how I was for herself, and to tempt me to eat. At noon she left our office in Heavilon Hall to bring me a chocolate shake from McDonalds, the only thing I thought I could tolerate swallowing. Finally regaining my health, and my voice beginning to return, I enjoyed having her companionship and hearing the news of the department, as well as the details of activities in the class meetings that I had missed during those sleep-filled days.

Just as Becky was relating that one of my former students had dropped by the office that very morning to inquire what his final course grade had been for the prior semester, we heard a knock at the door. Becky rose to answer the door and returned carrying what a florist had delivered, three lovely red roses. The card with the roses read, I hope these help put some color back into your cheeks, Jeff.

For a moment I wondered how my son Jeff, the only Jeff I could think of at that moment, could possibly have discovered in Texas that I had been sick. Then I recognized the handwriting on the card and realized the connection between the roses and the student Becky had disclosed my illness to in our office earlier that morning, Jeff Kizer. How thoughtful and considerate of that nice young man, I thought, to care enough that a former teacher was sick and send flowers. Teachers feel good upon learning that their efforts have been appreciated.

I called the telephone number listed for him in the Purdue student directory to thank him. His mother answered the phone and coolly related that he was at work. Perhaps she thought some girlfriend was calling, and didn’t approve. She didn’t volunteer the information that he no longer lived at home or offer his new phone number. In closing, I asked her to tell him his communication teacher wished to talk with him. Later I learned that his mother had given the message to his father, who in turn passed it on to Jeff.

Saturday was a beautifully bright day. Recovered from laryngitis and bronchitis, I was feeling much better and able to be out of bed, but still weak. At midmorning, Jeff returned my call. I learned later that by nature he was extremely reticent to talk on the phone. That certainly wasn’t evident during our 90-minute conversation that day. He spoke of his job at the hospital, new apartment, new roommates, and new car. He had saved enough money to buy a little red MG, and he’d had it for only for six months. As we continued to chat, he related that he was excited with the prospect of learning more about car maintenance plus the possibility of restoring the slightly battered pre-owned car to its original condition. That little red MG was his prize possession. Sounding like a little boy, he offered to take me for a ride to show it off. Although I was improved, I certainly was not ready to go outside. We agreed that if I were well enough by Monday, he would come for a visit and bring his MG for me to see.

Over the weekend I viewed Jeff’s proposed visit with some ambivalence. I’d appreciated his intellect, maturity, and personality in the classroom, and been touched by his kind gesture when I became ill and thought at least it would be pleasant to talk with him again. But I also wondered what I’d have to say to this young man who was roughly the same age as my two oldest children. I wasn’t aware that we had a great number of commonalities, and to me cars are only a transportation convenience, not a major interest. After we would exchange the superficial small talk usually engaged in by a teacher and a student separated in age by over twenty years and I’d told him how spiffy his car was, wouldn’t we feel a bit awkward? Much later Jeff confessed that he’d had similar mixed feelings about our appointment.

Monday, 3 February 1975, was one of those rare winter days in Indiana when the sunshine is brilliant and reflects off the glistening snow cover. There was a little breeze, but it seemed unseasonably warm for the dead of winter. The day was beautiful and spring-like, which as a transplanted Texan I relished.

After my days of isolation during the period of recovery, I felt peppier and enjoyed walking to class for the first time in a week. I dressed in apparel to fit my emotions, wearing the hip-hugging, bell bottom blue jeans we bought cheap at army surplus stores in the Seventies; a burgundy colored turtleneck, the knit shirt that my friend Lou Cusella had given me as a hand-me-down; and I topped off my appearance with large gold hoop earrings and the gold necklace bearing a small gold cross that I always wore.

This was the day Becky had planned to reward Jill for taking such good care of me while I was ill. She arranged to pick her up after school and take her to McDonalds. So instead of waiting to walk Jill home after our classes ended, as was my custom, I arrived home a little earlier than usual. My car was undependable in Indiana, not being a northern model. It had been purchased in southern California and then used in Texas. Jill and I mostly walked to get where we needed to go. Other times Becky graciously volunteered to drive us in her VW. My car had not been used for days, so with the intent of charging the battery, I started it and left it running.

When I returned to my apartment, my spirits were up and my heart was light. Jeff’s insight and maturity had impressed me the prior semester, and I realized I had been marking time before the afternoon hour set for Jeff’s visit. Jeff too appeared sooner than planned. I was standing before the mirror in the bathroom combing my wind tousled hair when I heard his knock on the storm door. Because of the day’s warmth, the apartment door was standing open, and he peered in with curiosity.

As is the case with students who have a wide range of talents and aptitudes and interests, in his exuberance for knowledge he had enrolled in senior/graduate level courses that appealed to him while shunning some basic required courses. He changed his major a time or two, and now he was aspiring to earn a B.S. in Biochemistry, or nuclear medicine. His mother wanted him to become a doctor, and he was thinking about it.

The upper level and graduate course credits he had earned would apply eventually toward his anticipated M.S. degree, but in the meantime he had yet to meet some lower level degree requirements for his B.S. degree. Finally accepting that no amount of upper level courses would result in the waiving of required fundamental ones, he became resigned to enroll in the campus-wide required introductory interpersonal communication course in the Fall semester, 1974. Hence fate had assigned Jeff to a section of the course I taught.

He had seemed a bit ill at ease at the beginning of the semester, but nevertheless determined to tolerate the freshman level course and get on with his educational pursuits. Each class period he would sit squarely and formidably in the middle of the classroom surrounded by students who for the most part were younger than he was.

On the first day, I called the roll to check the names listed on my computer generated roster with those persons seated in the room. Jeff congratulated me when I pronounced his last name phonetically, which seemed the logical pronunciation to me. To my continuing frustration, I have learned that at first sight many people do tend to mispronounce Kizer as Keezer or Kisser.

Purdue students sometimes viewed humanities courses with suspicion, tending to see the communication classroom environment with its somewhat unfamiliar subject matter as unique. The science and engineering students expected