August 15th, 2026
I was not planning on posting anything until I got to Alaska, but every now and then I write something in my daily journal that I feel like posting. This is one of those occassions.
One of the many things that really sucks about getting old and being widowed, is that occasionally something jogs a memory that has relevance only to family and friends that are gone. This morning, a book review in the NY Times brought back one of those memories. The book, “Finding Renee Richards”, is a biography about an accomplished, well to do eye surgeon from NYC who transitioned to be a somewhat infamous transgender tennis player, infamous only due to the publicity she received. This was back in the late 1970’s. If you followed tennis back then, he became a she, going through the painful surgery, and was a talented enough tennis player to get on the tour, in doubles, in the WTA. She even played at Wimbledon with Martina Navratilova (and won I think). The fact that she was a transgender woman, caused a lot of controversy, and they even made a movie about her.
So why is this one of my memories? I had some vision issues when I was very young, requiring surgery, and then needed follow up visits every year. When my eye surgeon retired, a young, athletic doctor, Richard Raskin, took over his practice. He changed his name to Renee Richards after the surgery. I recalled at my last visit with Dr. Raskin, when I was in undergraduate school, he had very long hair – I thought that was strange, since I was not expecting a well respected surgeon, with an office on the upper west side of Manhattan, to look like a hippy. I did not find out about his transition until my mother sent me a newspaper clipping, including a photo of her, when she had started playing professional tennis tournaments.
I was married by then, and Jan was well aware of the story, something we talked about whenever this came up in the news. My brother who passed away seven months after my wife died, would have had a good laugh about this – he also knew the story about one of our uncles, who made a rather inappropriate comment about the doctor after meeting him once.
Three years or so ago, I would have had a few laughs with Jan – she would have noticed this article first. I would have either called, or most likely texted my brother who I’m sure would have read that book review as well. But now, none of my remaining family (a few cousins) know this story, and with my parents long gone, it is just a memory relevant only to myself.
That’s really the hard part of being the last one standing – if you do not have children and grandchildren, all those interesting, funny and sad memories will just fade away. The good news is that if dementia is lurking in my future, the short-term memory goes first, so I can continue to revisit all the old, good memories including this one.
And, I can share some of the more interesting ones on this blog.
Peace
