Here are the 10 most recent messages from John and Lucinda. For a more complete archive see Archived Updates.
September 11, 2008
Dear Friends and Family:
This was the most difficult September 11th I have experienced since 2001. One wonders why it takes seven years to feel the full impact of an event like that. It was a day so tragic that it is almost beyond comprehension. But today, on September 11, 2008, I and some of my oldest NYC friends exchanged a few thoughts and visceral emotional reactions about that day for the first time. It was really tough to be there that day and to see all that went on for the days after. I can only begin to imagine what those we have sent off to war have seen. So today was about thinking about and reliving that day.
Today was also about facing the fact that we are leaving our beloved New Mexico and moving to Connecticut. We are moving because of my job and we found a great house in Stamford which we shall rent. We hope to return to New Mexico sometime in the future. This will be a huge change as I will be returning to the east coast after 16 years in the southwest and John Tull has never lived east of the Houston shipyards. So life continues to toss you and turn you and you just got to go on.
Much love to all on my 50-something birthday.
Lucinda ( and the sleeping JHT)
June 11, 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
This past Monday we had to send our dear kitty Jorge to kitty heaven. He had been sick for a few weeks and though we tried, we could not make him better. We both boo-hooed for a couple of hours, but knew it was the right thing to do. We will miss him terribly.
We did an interview with a local radio station last Saturday which was the first time we had talked about our experience with plague in a while. It is still difficult and painful to relive those very dark days, but we are happy to help educate people as much as possible. It will be five years ago on June 19th that John was finally released from the hospital!
Otherwise all is well enough. We are contemplating a possible move due to work. We will tell you more later.
Much love,
John and Lucinda
May 11, 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
May we first say a good day to our own mothers? We are both lucky to have them with us after having lost our fathers a good many years ago (13 yrs for John’s and 10 for Lucinda’s). Though we may struggle, as most of us do with child/parent relationships, we are glad to be able to have that struggle while we are all still on the same planet. So a very Happy Mothers’ Day to our mothers and to all other mothers.
We are in the east right now for Lucinda’s work and we got to see Katy Jane Tull who graduates from Bard in a couple weeks. Lucinda was wished a “HMD” by several people today both on her own and while with Katy. This made one think about the concept of both days….one in honor of each parent and what it really means.
John and Lucinda kid each other about being dog and cat “mommy and daddy”. We are that. We have also been sorts of parental types to a wide variety of young people and at times, to our friends who are our ages or perhaps a bit older. And we have had many friends who have temporarily fulfilled those parental roles for us.
So it might seem that as life evolves we might all get to be kids again and might get to have a mother and a father even if our natural ones are deceased or otherwise unavailable and that we might get the chance to play parent to someone who is not exactly a kid who might just need a temporary mommy or daddy.
So HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY to all who have taken care of kids, friends and pets, patients or anyone who has needed a mommy. Even just for a while.
Love,
John and Lucinda
May 4, 2008
Dear Friends and Family:
We just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. How much has changed for us and for the world in that micro-scopic moment in time. It is a bit overwhelming to say the least.
I would love to ask who you have voted for or who you plan to vote for, but politics has not been ever a point of this site. I think, instead that we are hopefully a site of hope…….in times of real difficulty. And so I will keep my mouth shut for the moment and stick with the fact that the word “hope” is not new and that we all just read and listen and vote with as much information as our hearts and brains can bring us.
Love,
John and Lucinda
April 6, 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
Lucinda is heading off for Hong Kong, London and Paris for work. Tull is going to see kids and grandkids in Texas and Oklahoma. We are doing well. A real vacation will follow all this at the end of the month. And then we celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary on May 2nd!
Love,
Lucinda and John
February 7, 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
We have been remiss in writing. First thing we want to say is that our documentary (Nightmare in New York) has been airing this week on Discovery Health. The dates and times are as follows:
2/4 8pm
2/4 11 pm
2/8 9pm
2/9 12am
2/9 6pm
3/2/3pm
The times are all eastern, but we have heard of people seeing it at other weird times and even other days. At any rate, it is part of a series call “Life or Death” and you might catch it (the show that is) at some point.
John Tull is still mostly wheelchair bound which neither of us cares for much and we hope he will be moving about again soon. However, we both have been quite sick with colds this week and he is still really struggling with his.
We are both looking forward to spring this year. It has been a rather long, cold winter. We dare not complain about the snow, but the cold we could live without.
Much love and Happy Valentine’s Day to all!
John and Lucinda
January 1, 2008
Dear Friends and Family:
First, we would like to wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year. We hope that your holiday season brought you some peace and joy.
Our holidays were spent relatively quietly and were quite nice. We did have a challenging situation on our hands which started two weeks ago today when John had to go to the St. Vincent’s emergency room because the end of one of his residual limbs started spurting some blood. We had not yet had an experience like that and it threw us both for a loop. It turned out that his skin had just been extremely dry and opened up. John thinks that this might have been brought on by a duck hunting expedition he took part in just a day before when it was rather bitter cold out. No ducks were slaughtered, but Mother Nature might have taken a pretty good stab at his leg.
He has been confined to the wheelchair ever since as we wait with great anticipation for new sockets which are being prepared for him. With any luck, we will have them this Friday. There is always a period of adjustment when he gets new anything related to his legs, but it will have to be better than the last two weeks. This period has brought us both back just a bit to the way things were for a very long time in our lives. John’s independence is very important for us both.
In the meantime all else is well. We had some time enjoying the holidays with friends and with Lucinda’s sister.
Lucinda’s job is quite wonderful. Next week she leaves on a 5 cities in 5 days trip and if John is not yet back to snuff we will hire this wonderful woman named Charlie who came in to our lives and who has helped us greatly with trying to keep up with the house. We will rest much better knowing that she is available and close by. It is also a relief to have our friend Paul who is a retired paramedic nearby. He rushed over on Christmas Eve night when John went backwards in his very light weight wheel chair. It’s great that is light weight so that we can each lift it without strain, but that also makes it a bit less stable. All was well that ended well.
Life continues to have ups and downs and sometimes the downs want to knock us both so deeply to the dirt that you think you don’t want to get up again. But you do. And that’s the hokey pokey.
We love all of you,
John and Lucinda
October 28, 2007
Well, Kiddies, we have all sorts of good news.
On Friday, our third grandchild was born. Graham Ellis Baker was delivered to Liza (John’s middle child) and Brandon Baker in Edmond, Oklahoma. He weighed eight pounds, eight ounces and is 21 inches long. He is adorable. Every one is healthy and ecstatic. We are very blessed.
Also on Friday, Lucinda arrived back (very late) from her first week at her fabulous new job. She is the Director of Client Relations for an international private equity real estate firm with offices in Santa Fe, Greenwich, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul. She spent her first week in London and Paris. Very exciting.
The documentary based upon John and Lucinda’s story is set to air on the Discovery Channel on November ninth. We think the time will be at 1:00 pm Eastern. However, as not to miss it, please check http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=1.13056.25390.31876.4
The series is called Life or Death and our segment is entitled Nightmare in New York. We think that it will be really cool.
We love each and everyone of you. Things are really going well in our lives.
John and Lucinda
October 17, 2007
Dear Friends and Family,
It has been nearly five years ago since we contracted the plague and made world-wide headlines. I remember sitting in my hospital bed as the PR person came in with a list of news reporters and organizations who wanted to speak with me. I could have been the person of the week (or hour or day) who spoke about her husband who was dying of the plague as the cameras rolled from her isolated hospital bed. Guess what? I could not have done that if you had offered me any number of millions of dollars. What I knew was that my best friend, the love of my life was in very serious condition. That was something that I was not going to turn in to the nightly entertainment for any number of people who would not have possibly understood what it really meant to confront what I was going through and what all those who love John Tull would also feel.
Here we are in the fall of 2007 and so very much has happened. I think that we are both in constant recovery mode and never would have gotten this far without the help of so many very good people.
I am starting a new job next week and am very, very excited about it. I will be traveling a fair amount to some quite wonderful places all around the world. Who would have ever thought we could survive what we survive and then some.
Much love,
Lucinda (and Tull)
September 5, 2007
Dear Friends and Family,
How can it possibly be that summer is over? We feel as if we are just getting ready for Memorial Day and not just finished with Labor Day! Already time to put away the white shoes??!!
We are excited to be taking a first vacation together in quite a long while. Lucinda has a business trip to Seattle this weekend and so we both shall go and then take a few more days and drive to Oregon (where neither of us has been). We will spend a couple days at the beach and then to Portland where we will see our old friend Ann P. who moved there about a year and a half ago. We will also be seeing Lucinda’s old New York theatre pals Stephen and Kate in Seattle. We will eat seafood with abandon.
Tull recently spent a day in Taos with his son Trey and family and took some really great pics of the grandkiddies. We are too dumb to get them on the website so far. But we did get one pic of Tull flying last May on the site. So we promise to take pictures on our trip and learn how to put them all up when we get back. Where are the 14 year olds when you need them?
Happy end of another summer to you all. And by the way, we have not had word yet on when the Discovery documentary will air, but will certainly keep you posted!
Much love,
John and Lucinda