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YA Author Jody Sparks

~ Love. Angst. And Writing Books.

YA Author Jody Sparks

Tag Archives: Josh Mugele

Ebola–Close to Home

04 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by jody sparks in family

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

disaster management, Ebola, emergency medicine, fear, Josh Mugele, kent brantly, Liberia, news, politics, Sam Brisbane

Here’s the thing: my husband could’ve been Kent Brantly. He stood in JFK Hospital JoshuaMugelein Monrovia, Liberia while their first Ebola patient came in. My perspective as a wife was first to be angry and irrational–why did you go back to Liberia? Holy shit. Get out of there now. Et cetera.

He did get out of there. His incubation period passed, and I knew he’d be fine. Obviously I was relieved.

Then Kent Brantly’s story hit the news. I felt for his wife. I wondered if she’d be a widow. I wondered a lot about what it would be like to be a widow.

As these wifely thoughts percolated, Josh filled in details about his experiences in Liberia. We often have our morning coffee on the porch together. And Josh brought back some wonderful coffee from Dr. Brisbane’s plantation. As we sipped our rich coffee, Josh frowned at how the nurses rationed gloves. His brow pinched together as he wondered if JFK would have to close down, and how would people get their medicines?, and think of the pregnant mothers who can’t get to the hospital. (As of today, the hospital had closed, but was reopened.) Josh speculated about the doctors and staff getting Ebola. His eyes became teary. “There aren’t enough doctors, already.” He didn’t say anything about regretting leaving Liberia because that’s not something you say to your wife.

Then we got word that Dr. Brisbane had indeed gotten Ebola. Soon after, word came that he died. I never knew him, but I’ve been there while Josh grieves his friend, so I’m sure Dr. Brisbane was a wonderful man. (I still can’t seem to brew that last pot of Monrovian coffee from Dr. Brisbane’s plantation.)

Then another Liberian doctor died. And some of the staff.

The news crews came. Josh was interviewed five or seven times, I think. I was struck, but not surprised, by how much was edited down–the parts about real people dying and about a Liberian hospital in need of things as basic as gloves and power cords–while the fear that Ebola could come to America was reported over and over. It’s a valid fear, but only one part of the story.

In other news, Kent Brantly and Nancy were coming home for treatment. I was happy for Kent’s wife. She wasn’t going to be a widow. America can contain and treat two cases of Ebola.

But what about the Liberian doctors? What about the Liberian widows?

All my thankfulness that my husband was home safe got wadded up with the realness of people dying and the unfairness of white vs. brown and rich vs. poor and educated vs. uneducated. It’s a strange, sad entanglement. I’m married to a man who has an important skill. He’s promised to his family–a husband and father, and he’s committed to skillfully treat sick and dying people and manage disasters. It has suddenly become harder to ask him to choose the family–harder, but not impossible. I’m selfish for me and my kids. I do not wish to be a widow.

Dr. Brisbane (and many others) made a choice to keep doctoring the people of Liberia. He could’ve retired to his coffee plantation. But he went to work at the hospital. And it cost him his life. His wife is widow. Fourteen kids lost their dad.

Josh was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He wrote an essay about Dr. Brisbane and his sacrifice. It is a beautiful and well-written essay. You should read it.

There are things we can do. We can help Liberian nurses get gloves. We can help Liberian doctors get equipment they need to stay safe while treating patients. There can be fewer widows and orphans. Please consider donating to The Dr. Sam Brisbane Fund. (If you want to hear Josh discuss how the  money will help, watch this video.)

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Fourteen Years

31 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by jody sparks in Adventures, family, getting old

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Jody Sparks, Josh Mugele, Josh Mugele is in LOVE with Jody Sparks, love, marriage, wedding anniversary

So today marks fourteen years of marriage for Josh and me. That seems like sooooo many years. I guess it is. Josh asked me what year was the best so far. It’s a little like asking which season is the best when you live on the California coast. They’re all good. Sure there was the year of El Nino, but other than that, it’s mostly delightful. And I guess that describes our married life. Sure there was the year of the dot.com bust, oh! and let’s not forget the year of Ella’s colic. But other than that it’s been swell. It really has.

I was looking for some kind of medical records or something the other day when I found our wedding vows. We wrote our own because I sure wasn’t going be pledging obedience and all that shit. And here’s what Josh wrote and recited me all those years ago (written on a memo pad from gemini metals corporation):

Well, Jody, our parents have given their blessing, our friends and family have all come as witnesses, and the minister will make our marriage legal. But it’s this–you and me, speaking together–that is the most important, the most valuable part of the whole wedding. These promises I’m making are not for our parents, they’re not for the church, they’re for you. And, really, I don’t need to make them. You know, Jody, that without speaking, because of our life together, how much I love you and how committed I am to you. But in front of all these people, I promise out loud, to learn to love you and to stay with you as long as we live, Jody. And, of course, I promise to respect you, encourage you, and grow with you . I promise to have babies with you and grow old with you. These things go without saying–they’re written in every aspect of the life we share. But more than these promises, these vows, Jody, I will work with you, Jody, and most of all I will try my very best to be a good husband. After all, isn’t that what love is? Isn’t that, really, what life is? — working together and knowing we will fail often, still doing the best we know how to do.

Well, yes. And failed we have. And loved we have. What a life it has been. A really good one.

And, um, Josh? When you promised to have babies with me, you really didn’t have to make good on that on our honeymoon. But, thank you for this wonderful life we have. Thank you for the commitment, respect, encouragement, and for staying true to these words. I love you. Happy Anniversary.

 

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One Of My Favorite Moments of Marriage

18 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by jody sparks in family, getting old

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

family, Jody Sparks, Josh Mugele, knowing your spouse, love, marriage

I haven’t blogged about family recently, and I truly think my best posts are the family stories. This one is about Josh and me, last year. I believe he had just matched for his medical residency and our time was winding down in Michigan. We were out at the pub with Lisa and Evan, our best “couple friends” who had just married fairly recently. The way Evan was still googly-eyed over Lisa was adorable as hell, and admittedly I was a little jealous.

Our dinner had nearly come to a finish, and Josh had escaped to the bathroom when the waitress approached and asked us if we’d like dessert. Lisa and Evan passed. I was pretty sure Josh would want something, so I asked her about the chocolate cake on the menu. “It’s Amazing!” She explained.

Well, of course it was, I thought. “I know,” I said, “But can you describe it? Is it a really dense cake? Because Josh likes his chocolate cake fluffy and light.”

She hedged. “Mmm, I’m not sure. It’s rich, I guess, but it’s sooooooo good. He won’t be disappointed.”

I looked at Lisa and Evan while they simply looked back at me. Then I told the waitress we’d wait for Josh to return.

When Josh returned, so did our waitress. She said, “Your wife wasn’t sure whether to order dessert for you, or not.”

He consulted his menu. “What’s the chocolate cake like?”

“It’s soooooo good,” she said. “Everyone loves it!”

Josh said, “Yeah, but can you describe it? I don’t like my chocolate cake to be super dense. Is it dense, or is it more fluffy?”

We all just cracked up. Even the waitress. Poor Josh. He was like, “Uh, what?”

The waitress said, “That’s exactly what your wife asked me!”

When it was all over, Josh passed on the cake. But I’d like to think that Lisa and Evan were just the tiniest bit jealous of Josh and I in that moment.

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What Proud Looks Like

18 Tuesday May 2010

Posted by jody sparks in Adventures, family

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Jody Sparks, Josh Mugele, University of Michigan 2010 Medical School Commencement

Thank You, Karina Mugele, for the AMAZING photos!

(If you’re viewing from a reader you may need to click through for the short slide-show.)

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Guest Blogger: Josh Mugele (The husband), on Books

23 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by jody sparks in books

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Best Books, Jody Sparks, Josh Mugele

Jody asked me to write a post as a guest blogger for her blog this morning because she’s feeling down having to think about the prospect of moving and looking for a new job but still likes seeing people visit her blog.  Apparently the uptick on her traffic meter makes her happy.

I asked her what I should write about.  She said anything I wanted.  I asked if I could write about my butt.  She said no.

So, I thought I would write about books.  There’s a little internet meme going around right now where all the cool bloggers are writing about the 10 books that influenced them the most.  I thought about what my list would be like and immediately had a few problems with the concept.  First, I often like a lot of books by the same author.  I can’t really separate them out.  Second, I don’t know that I could stratify them into any sort of rank order.  So, instead I’ll write about authors I really, really like and who I can read over and over again.  The list will probably be in the ballpark of 10.

A few words before I get started:  you may notice that most (if not all) of the authors I like are dead.  I don’t know if that’s a comment on my background (lit major in college) or my indictment on how I feel about current literature or what, but there it is.  Also, as I was thinking about this list I noticed that many of my choices were what you might call novels of ideas.  Not all, but a lot.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate good story-telling or a well-developed character, but these are the kinds of books I’m drawn to.

So, here we go:

  • Jorge Louis Borges Author of mostly short stories and essays, his Ficciones is one of the most intriguing books I’ve ever read.  The story, “The Library of Babel” should be required reading.

  • Albert Camus I think he’s a little unfairly known as an existentialist philosopher and linked with Sartre.  At the end of the day, he just wrote some damn good novels.  The Stranger is probably his most recognized, but my favorite is The Plague about a town quarantined by the bubonic plague and the struggles between the doctor and the priest.

My favorite quote from the book:  “Yet after all—since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn’t it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes toward the Heavens where He sits in silence?”

  • John Gardner Usually required high school reading for his novel Grendel, Gardner also wrote The Sunlight Dialogues and a lesser-known but well-loved (by me) The Wreckage of Agathon.  He was a creative writing teacher who also wrote a book called The Art of Fiction where he argued that art has to have some sort of moral element.  While, I might argue with him on some of his theories, I love his novels.  He was, above all, an ambitious writer.

  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov were my favorites.  But when I was in college, I probably read every book he wrote.    They’re a little daunting at over 500 pages each, but written with passion.

  • Raymond Chandler The father of detective fiction, he’s responsible for creating the penultimate detective, Philip Marlowe, in works like The Long Goodbye and The Big Sleep.  I like his books because of the lonely morality of his protagonist but mostly because the prose is so incredibly fun to read.  For example:
    • Chess is the most elaborate waste of human intelligence outside of an advertising agency. 
    • Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off.
    • I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday.
    • I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won’t let himself get snotty about it.
    • From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

  • Robert Fagles This one cheats a little bit.  He’s a translator of Homer’s works.  But here’s the reason I love him, the opening stanza from his translation of The Iliad: 

Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,

Murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,

Hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,

Great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,

Feasts for the dogs and birds,

And the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,

Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

  • Graham Greene Probably the greatest modern writer never to get the Nobel Prize.  I recommend The Third Man and The Power and the Glory.

  • Kurt Vonnegut When he’s on he’s on, but when he’s not, meh.  I loved Cat’s Cradle and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater.

  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez His longer novels can be a bit of a drag sometimes, but his short pieces are close to perfection.  Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Of Love and Other Demons are wonderful.  And I really like the rhythm of Spanish when it’s translated into English.  Makes me feel exotic or something.

  • Robert Graves He is the classics scholar turned novelist (and poet).  I, Claudius and Claudius the God are two of the best novels ever written.  His post WWI-era autobiography, Goodbye to All of That is supposed to be phenomenal.  It’s on my list to read.

  • T.H. White The Once and Future King is all I’m aware he’s ever written.  I guess it could be described as a children’s novel – basically the re-writing of the Arthur legend.  But it’s so bittersweet, funny, and moving.  I’ll love this book forever.

  • Milan Kundera I’ve read most of his books by the Czech novelist, but the one I liked the best was his most famous, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  Like Borges, he really struggles with the idea of infinite and where humans fit into it.

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Matched and Still Married

20 Saturday Mar 2010

Posted by jody sparks in family

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Jody Sparks, Josh Mugele, Med School

Being matched is a good feeling.

I don’t talk about my marriage much on my blog, but I think today I will. I’m not a believer in destiny or “the one I am meant to be with.” I just knew Josh was interesting and I wanted to be around him forever. This is how he proposed: we were driving from my home in Indiana back to college in Tennessee. Josh stopped at the Cumberland Gap. It’s a gorgeous ravine, especially in the Fall. We sat down on the stony ledge, and he took out my grandmother’s ring. He said, “If you don’t marry me, I’ll throw myself off the ledge.” What’s a girl to do?

It’s probably the smartest thing I ever did. When the Odd in life sets in, there is my marriage to hold me still. Finances can go to crap. The kids can get colicky. Jobs can be lost. Creative pursuits may stall or never happen. Friendships will come and go. And yet, there is my marriage.  Uh, don’t get me wrong, we fight. But it’s still a pretty steady beat in an otherwise unpredictable life. We’re not great at planning. Evidence: me getting pregnant on the honeymoon. (I use the term honeymoon loosely.) So, planning out Josh’s Med School path was a pretty big deal. I’m incredibly proud of his hard work, willingness to start over, and perseverance. I’m sure there’s more hardship to come; I hear intern year is no picnic. But for now, I’m hanging on to the swing, closing my eyes in the breeze, and enjoying the satisfaction of Josh’s match day outcome. It feels so great to have tangible results!

I’m also kind of hoping that Josh will make at least one more post to his blog, which he started at the beginning of Med School. It would be a great wrap up. Some great things over there for anyone who may be interested in going to Med School, whether it’s at the University of Michigan, or not. It tracks his journey well into third year and then gets spotty, as he becomes more sleep-deprived and begins preparing for the boards and for interviews.

Congratulations to my baby on matching, and matching incredibly well. I think I just fell in love with you a little more.

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Residency Update

10 Saturday Oct 2009

Posted by jody sparks in family

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

family, Jody Sparks, Josh Mugele

Mugele, JoshJosh has now received two invites for residency interviews.

1. Lexington Kentucky

2. Ann Arbor Michigan

It’s still quite early in the process and some (most?) programs don’t begin invites until after November 1. So, this is a good start it seems to me.

Also, I’m still taking suggestions for nicknames to bestow on the good doctor Mugele upon his graduation. I’ve been trying out J-Doc. It sounds cool, but I think we can do better.

This is his official U of  M portrait that will haunt the halls of the Hospital for many years to come. He’s so cute, huh?

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Who Would Play You In a Movie?

22 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by jody sparks in family, movies

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Jody Sparks, John Kasinski, Josh Mugele, movies

My family has this ongoing game of trying to decide who would play particular family members if there was a movie about our life. Which, of course there will be some day.  Josh has always been a little tricky to cast. Well, I’m very excited because I think I’ve found the guy!  John Kasinski! Check this out.

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I think I’m going to make this a regular feature on my blog. I’ll just pick a friend or relative now and then and match them with a celebrity.  Ya know, for when Hollywood comes a’ calling.

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Jody Sparks, YA Author

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