Crazy New Houstonians, Going to Zero

There are probably a lot of stories that I will eventually think of but the one that will be told here is Marilyn’s compulsion to finish the move to our new city. This didn’t involve finding living space, although we had just two weeks to do that. It didn’t involve trying the local cuisine, although we were doing that to a certain extent. (Marilyn never did fully embrace the “Cajun” spicy food imported from Louisiana or the spicy equivalent in Tex/Mex. Indeed even the native barbeque was not her food of choice. There will be a lot of food discussion opportunities throughout many of these topics.) It does involve going to a landmark that many cities have but one that I would have never thought of in a million years, going to the zero-zero address.

I can’t even remember the names of the Houston cross-streets that formed this landmark. But Marilyn insisted that we visit it. We were lucky that this address at least was in the Office Building portion rather than the middle of a slum. We were unlucky in finding parking, even though this was a weekend, not because of the crush of cars, but rather the dearth of open parking lots. I don’t know how far we ended up walking but at one point in our walk Marilyn wanted to cross diagonally across an intersection. She knew that meant she had to cross two streets rather than just cross the intersection itself, there was at least that much traffic to keep us safe, but she unfortunately insisted on crossing the street that the traffic light allowed immediately. Now, I don’t know whether Houston has any other street, intersection, or crosswalk, like this anywhere else. I can’t remember whether this was a temporary condition or one of intentional design but there was nothing to cross to.

In fact, there were signs, there was a fence, and an obvious lane of pending traffic that would pass in the lane we would have to be standing in once we arrived across that street. While Marilyn and I often held hands on many of our walks, we weren’t then. She was halfway across the street before I even realized what she was doing. I couldn’t think of any words that would have gotten her to realize her error in time so I ran out and grabbed her arm. She made to shake it off and got a real “I’ll show them” look on her face when she finally heard me say, “We can’t cross here.”

I still had to point out the signs and the lack of anyplace to stand, safely, before she would move back to the sidewalk we had left. We did get back, obviously.

It was then I realized just how stubborn she was. While I never did use this example of her stubbornness, I knew that she was far more stubborn than I was or ever could be. She always won true tests of wills but we rarely had them on the important things.

There is a good side to stubbornness and Marilyn had it—determination to spare.

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Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.