Solid Gold Sisters (Video)

Elliana always wanted to hang out with Gemma. 

She loves her little sister to this day, because love transcends life and death! 

We all still love Elliana, and Elliana still loves all of us!

Solid Gold Sisters

Video by Tom Koecke in memory of

Elliana Tapia (2005-2023)

Click this to check out other videos on my YouTube channel.

Remembering Elliana: Elliana Tapia (2005-2023)

With tremendous sadness, the family of Elliana Tapia announces that she passed away on July 18, 2023.

Elliana was born on July 28, 2005. She was the first child for both of her parents. She was the first grandchild of some of her grandparents. She made her mother’s sister an Auntie for the first time.

We all loved and adored her antics and her huge personality. She was creative and artistic. She loved music, makeup, animals, the ocean, the mountains, cooking, and hanging out with her friends. She was beautiful, loving, and full of wonder and mischief! We could not imagine life without her!

Remembering Elliana: Thinking About the Day She Died

As I try to reconcile my granddaughter's death on July 18th, the relationship to so many things come to mind as I think about the things we did and said on the day she died.

Her birthday and mine are exactly six months apart. She liked to ask me how old I would be when she turned a certain age. She would have turned eighteen years old ten days after she died. I will likely be sixty-five-and-a-half years old that day. 

Candace, Erin, and Elliana were all told as small children that I would be their best friend until they found best friends their ages. Candace and Erin found their best friends in elementary school. Elliana loved hanging out with me well into her teen years. She was my travel buddy, she was my biker babe, she was my best friend, and she was my equal-opposite.

My Diabetes Update, or "That's a Good Question; We Don't Know"

I received good news and bad news about my diabetes about three weeks ago. The good news is that I don't have diabetes. My blood sugar is actually in good shape after they put a stent into a bile duct that was blocked. I don't have diabetes at all. 

However, the bad news is that my bile duct was closed because of cancer. I met with the oncologists for the first time today. What I learned is that it is pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to my liver. Because it is that advanced, it is deemed to be stage four cancer. 

The questions the doctors asked were more about the quality of my life today, whether or not I am in severe pain, and to tell me there are two treatment options that often work to at least slow the growth and spreading of the cancer. In the best case, the treatment will stop the spreading, and the cancerous growth may shrink. However, they would expect that it will eventually come back even in the best-case scenario. 

My Projects as a Butterfly

Butterflies make the world just a bit nicer while they flutter around our yards and gardens. The results are not immediate, except for the beauty they bring to our views just by being what they are.

My first project as a butterfly was to paint the interior of the house. It is an arduous process because it had to be done while maintaining the house as living space. The change brought new colors to the walls, and it also inspired others to pitch in to improve the living conditions here at home. For example, doing the dishes every morning was a task that I did for the most part. It was just the way it worked out. 

The most difficult part was convincing people to rinse their dishes and stack them next to the sink rather than to pile unrinsed dishes on top of other unrinsed dishes in the sink. One roommate graciously complied. Another roommate required me to put the dishes in front of his door with a note reminding him of my request. A former roommate got told on the fifth time that I would be asking Bryan to evict him, but he moved out voluntarily before that.

You Don't Know Me Better than I Know Myself

Whether you are a friend who has smoked pot and bullshitted with me for a couple of decades, or a cousin who has known me for sixty-five years but hung out with me about ten times over that span, you don't know me better than I know myself. Neither do my siblings and other relatives, my longtime friends, or even you know me better than I know myself.

I am nowhere near perfect, and I am aware of more flaws in myself than you are. However, I am always willing to listen to another person's opinion about a behavior of mine that bothers them. That does not mean that I will change that behavior for them. Sometimes, it is better for me to explain why I do that or did that, and, if they cannot accept my reasoning, move on from the relationship. Such is the case in the relationships with my friend and my cousin.

The Great Motor Scooter Debate

I have loved riding on two wheels since I was young. Dad had a Honda 90 step-through that was kept at "the lake place" near Church Lake. Dad acquired the property from his long-time business associate and dear friend, Tim McCartney, and used it as a recreational getaway for the family. It was mostly my brother and me who rode it, but I remember one time when my younger sister rode it. She knew how to make it go, but she didn't know how to make it stop. She ran it into a fence that we had to rebuild before we could ride it again that day. 

Even though my brother and I were upset for her not knowing how to stop, I now recognize that one of the hardest lessons we learn when we ride motorbikes is how to stop on them. My own first experience riding a scooter with a clutch was on Uncle Rudy's Lambretta 125. He told me how to let the clutch out and how to shift the gears, which was done by a slight twist on the clutch handle. The ride went really well, but the bike started jerking on me as I came back to where my uncle was. They didn't tell me that I needed to pull the clutch back in or to be in neutral when I stopped. 

My Diabetes Follow Up Visit

It was time for the follow up appointment with my doctor yesterday. It couldn't have come soon enough for some of my friends who seem to worry about my health because, they believe, I am reckless with it. For example, if I had taken my incessant coughing and dry heaving as seriously as they did, I might recognize that I could have a bleeding ulcer. 

I try to explain to them that throwing up is different than dry heaving, and I haven't been throwing up for six weeks either. I tell them that I threw up once six weeks ago and twice last week, but they always hear me coughing. I tell them that the most common time I cough is after a hit of weed or a dab, but what do I know compared to some app that diagnoses all types of terminal illnesses for exaggerated symptoms?

Anyway, I assured them that I would ask the doctor about it. 

Remembering Dad: Looking Back on the Night He Planned His Funeral

Dad was 58 years old when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was referred to an oncologist who told him that he had to quit smoking if he wanted an operation to remove the cancer, but that he should now get his final affairs in order regardless of his decision to quit smoking or not. Without the operation, his condition was terminal.

Mom immediately quit smoking cigarettes, and she enforced the non-smoking rule on Dad when she caught him smoking some old pipe tobacco that he had put on the shelves years before when smoking a pipe was his thing. Dad reluctantly cooperated, but he truly did quit smoking for the last two years of his life.

Remembering Mom: She Wanted to Live and Go Home the Last Time I Visited with Her

A memory came up in my Facebook feed today. It was the third anniversary of a post I made after visiting Mom for the last time. We did not know it was the last time at the time. My post was not about it being our last face-to-face visit. March 9, 2020 was also the date that more than 100 cases of COVID-19 were discovered at a nursing home in King County, which prompted an immediate halt to visiting patients in nursing homes and hospitals the next day. 

I don't recall if my older sister told me that Mom had been transferred to a nursing home the morning of the 9th or the day before, but it was the day Mom was transferred. I am thankful to this day for her keeping me advised about Mom and what was going on. I would not have liked visiting her in the hospital and finding an empty bed where I expected to see her. 

She also told me in that conversation that our sister who had "the plan" for Mom to live with her was probably going to have her move into a long-term care facility rather than accommodate her home for something as unpredictable as Mom was going to need accommodations for a wheelchair. 

Bugsy Says, "Hold My Milk Bowl"

I have lost two of my cat buddies in two of the past four years. Both Prancer and Mr. Grumpy died in 2019. I lost my cuddle-buddy grandkitten, Charlie Cakes, in January of last year. In August, I lost Jezebel, who was my best friend ever who was an animal. 

We are able to get new furry family members as we lose our pets, but they do not really replace our losses. For example, I got Kai Guy in 2020. He is nothing like Prancer or Mr. Grumpy. Kai has his own distinct personality. He likes to be brushed, but he does not like being held. His greatest sign of affection is when he will stand on my lap and let me brush him or pet him. He is gone the moment he is free from any coddling I try to give him. 

Late last year, a roommate had to rescue two of his adult cats from the home of a scorned ex. One of those cats is a seventeen-year-old guy named Bugsy. I call him Bugs Buddy. 

I'm On My Way to Wound Care

I was recently diagnosed as diabetic. Type II diabetes runs in my family. However, my predisposition to the disease is not because of genetically deficient pancreas in both family lines. The predisposition toward diabetes that I inherited from my parents is obesity. 

I can't do anything about the predisposition toward obesity, but I can control my diet and try to keep my weight down. I have lost 25 pounds since I was diagnosed with diabetes shortly before Christmas. When my doctor sees my weight, he may even congratulate me for going from morbidly obese to just really fat, but he will let me know that I have more weight to lose.

If Things are Different, What Changed?

After a nice twenty-minute visit with my nephew at the tattoo studio where he was working, we parted ways with a hug and the promise to get together more often. It seemed so sincere, and that is the way I took it. I meant what I said, and I believed he did, too. That is why it was quite a shock when he wrote to me over a family squabble contending, among other things, that I showed up that day just to start crap and cause problems. 

I wrote back to him that I had no idea that he felt our relationship was such that for years he had to pretend to be nice to me rather than feeling free to discuss problems or disagreements. I assured him that I would not bother him again, and that he was not to bother me again without first explaining why he wrote what he wrote.

All was well for a while, but then I was tagged in an invitation to his son's first birthday party. I tried to delete the tag so I could ignore it without responding, but he put the tag back on, which I took as a taunt. I responded with a reminder that we had agreed to stay out of each other's lives and inviting me without explaining why he said what he said violates that agreement. That resulted in me getting blasted in stereo, with his wife chiming in that she sees why her husband says the things he says about me.

My All-Time Mariners' Team, or How I Waste My Time

What I decided that most needed to be done before the year's end was to name my all-time Mariners' team. 

The first thing to do was to set the criteria for position players to qualify for the team. I was able to get at least three names for left field, DH, and utility positions by setting the minimum at 1,500 at bats or 500 games. 

Here are my first and second all-time Mariners' teams from those who qualified:

Dealing with Diabetes

My doctor warned me several years ago to watch my weight and diet because I was edging toward diabetes. I heeded his warning and got my A1C level under control by losing weight via a high protein, low carb diet. That was then.

As I suffered setbacks in my mental health, my attitude toward my physical health declined. It may have been consequential. It had to do with finding comfort by eating foods that were not on my diet. Potatoes and breads started working their way back into my diet. Desserts became more regular. Sugary snacks between meals also became more frequent. Finding something to eat or snack on became something to do. 

I don't know how much of neglecting my diet was part of prioritizing my care for others ahead of my own needs, but, regardless, I have crossed the line from pre-diabetic in July to diabetic in December. I may be able to reverse the diagnosis by putting my own needs first, but, until I do, I am measuring my glucose levels three times a day and taking Metformin twice a day.