Mere mortals look askance at age seventy, try to brush it off their shoulder, call in the spa champions to redecorate hips, lips and fingertips. Siobhan Patricia Ellison doesn’t give it a thought, she’s too busy. There are clients to address, molecules to study, tests to run and lives to save.
She gets up at daybreak, puts her socks on standing up (maintaining balance is everything), makes the first of two cups of tea for the morning and goes out to commune with dogs, cats, horses, goats and anybody else who shows up. Siobhan is an animal lover of the first magnitude. She could exist just fine without a human companion but not without a dog or cat close at hand. As a young girl, she doted on horses, insisted to anyone who would listen she’d grow up to be a veterinarian. In those days, you could count the women entering vet school at the University of Florida on one hand, but Ms. Ellison is a very determined person and she persevered.
I met Dr. Ellison when she was interning with a veterinary practice in Ocala. She came out to my Orange Lake farm one Spring afternoon in the mid-1980s with my equine vet, Dr. Ted Specht, one of her mentors. She wore jeans, sensible shoes, a vest to counter cool weather and had her long hair pulled back in a braid. She was not shy about offering her opinions, one of them being that I should euthanize a broodmare who had run through a fence as a two-year-old, infected an elbow joint and lost the use of a leg. The mare seemed to be doing just fine, thank you, having produced one nice foal and currently being pregnant again. I told Ted that Dr. Ellison’s chippy attitude would not endear her to potential clients. He smiled and said, “Siobhan is not a master of tact.”
One year later, Ted Specht decided to return to school to become an equine surgeon. His partners often arrived late to my farm, if at all. I called Ted one day and asked him to recommend a competent, punctual replacement. “I would call Siobhan Ellison,” he said without a second thought. “What she lacks in experience, she makes up for with intelligence and competence.” Oh great, I thought---her---Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I called her anyway. She arrived right on the dot and she was even smiling. I thought to myself, Ted must have sent her to charm school. We’ll see how long this arrangement lasts.
Getting To Know You
The average percentage of thoroughbred mares in Florida who get in foal and eventually deliver a healthy baby is about 67%. The first year Dr. Ellison worked with me, 14 of the 15 mares I owned produced healthy foals. The next year, it was 15 of 15. Better yet, Siobhan had started bringing me popsicles now and then. Two thirds of the way into breeding season the second year, I told her she could name her choice spot for dinner if we got all 15 mares in foal. She said she’d think about it. A few days later when I got to the farm, there was a note on our message board that simply said, “PARIS!” My on-site farm helper Don looked at it with suspicion. “What does that mean?” he asked. “It means Dr. Ellison is going to be disappointed,” I said. I wrote back, “Good choice! There’s a little diner in Paris, Kentucky you’d just love.”
We never made it because a few weeks later, while nightwatching pregnant mares, I wearied of the exotic menus at Orange Lake’s fine-dining spots. I called Siobhan, who lived only 15 minutes away and asked her what she had to eat out there. She promised to rustle up something. It is from such exotic wool that lifetime partnerships are sometimes woven. After my fine meal, we talked and eventually I advised that I had to get back to the mares. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” I told her, “especially in light of your wise policy of not dating the customers.” She smiled, led me to the door and said, “That doesn’t apply to the ones who get popsicles.”
It’s 37 years later and, alas, we still haven’t made it to Paris. But we did get to the Little Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas on June 25, 2016 to tie the marital knot. Turns out that under certain circumstances Siobhan can be more tactful than anyone thought.
Of Romance And Reality
I am not one of those who subscribes to the mirage that opposites attract. As an incurable romantic, I am comfortable in the company of dreamers and artists, people who did better in English class than Mathematics. The high school scientists were an odd lot, errantly dressed, poorly coiffed and much too interested in amoebas. We left them to their own devices, swam in a different sea and never gave them a thought, Yet, there they were on graduation day, sitting on the valedictory benches like cats who ate the canary.
Siobhan Ellison is interested in medical science, cures for difficult diseases, exceptional rock formations, geology and archeology. She likes to stay home in her little house in the country, reading and fussing with the cats and dogs, who consider her the Princess of the Eastern Light. If you asked her to choose between a $500 dress from Paris or a $200 gift card from Barnes and Noble, she’d take the gift card every time. If you are going to merit consideration as her partner, certain things will be expected of you; first, you will be available. When I dated Betsy Harper in the early 1980s, I worked in the Circus five days a week, ten a.m. to ten p.m., with not much time for recreation. Betsy called my worktime “dark days,” after the racetrack parlance for those days each week when the track was closed. Early in the relationship with Siobhan, she advised that five dark days a week were unacceptable. If you took the dark days, you didn’t get the veterinarian. Point taken.
You were also not allowed to be mediocre. After all, she wasn’t. Once, Dr. Ellison made a very small mistake during a foaling, a rarity, and was irked with herself no end. “Hey, nobody’s perfect,” I told her. Maybe not, she said, but you got a lot closer to perfect if that’s what you aimed for. Usually, when you ask a woman what her goals are in life, you get predictable answers. With Siobhan, you get “I’d like to win the Nobel Prize for developing a vaccine for Malaria.” What can you say? Oh, that’s nice.
Still, even Siobhan Ellison is vulnerable to romance if it’s delivered in clever doses. One day, she was bemoaning the unavailability of a print of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Red Poppy No. VI. I tracked one down, had it shipped to another address and took it with us, framed, in the trunk of the car when we went to St. Pete Beach for one of her birthdays. I think we stayed at a beachside place called the Happy Dolphin Inn, with sliding doors which opened right onto the sand. While she went out looking for shells, I told her I’d check the restaurant menu, which I already knew was very good. In the dining room, I found a table in a private corner with a painting on the wall. I asked the maitre d’ to replace it with Red Poppy No. VI just before our dinner, which he was thrilled to do. Everybody likes to be party to a big surprise, especially if they’re handsomely rewarded.
When we arrived for dinner, we were led to our table by the smiling host, who delivered a furtive wink. By now, every worker in the place knew the con was on. Siobhan was amazed when we reached our table. “Look at THIS! I’ve been looking for one of these all over the place---what are the chances we’d have one right over our table?” Pretty good, actually.
When it was time to go, the waiter swept the table, presented the bill and told Siobhan, “Because you like it so much, Miss, we are going to give you this painting.” The donee was all objections as the man took the picture off the wall and handed it to us. By this time, half the smiling restaurant staff had closed in to watch the fun. Finally, Siobhan got it, breaking into a big smile and cradling her hefty gift. Everyone in the place applauded as we headed back to our room. She looked at me with a respectful twinkle in her eye, but did not say, oh, thank you Bill for this wonderful gift which I’ll cherish forever. What she said was typical and succinct: “I’m gonna get you for this.”
Perilous Times
In any relationship, the true measure of a partner is how one performs when the chips are down. And, sooner or later, the chips will be down. Driving around Ocala with Siobhan one morning, I felt a bit sick to my stomach, nothing major. Like many of the people I know, this is not a rare phenomenon, stomach troubles seem to come with the territory for oldsters. I had no indication of a heart issue, just a very slight soreness below the nipples. My health stats were all good, I was going to the gym three times a week and I maintained a healthy diet. I had been advised by my urologist that I had a condition called PIN, a precursor to prostate cancer, but I was taking a study drug called Toremifene to ward that off. It never occurred to me there might be any cardiac wolves lurking at the door.
As the day went on, my discomfort increased but never to the point of nausea. Siobhan insisted we check in with my primary care doc in Gainesville, who also happened to be a cardiologist. We did, and he could find nothing heart-related. He suggested a catheterization, which is the ultimate truth-teller for heart issues. I foolishly demurred. Driving across Paine’s Prairie back home, Dr. Ellison was on the warpath, excoriating my decision without rest. Seeking relief from the torrent of criticism, I grudgingly told her to go ahead and book the cath for the next morning.
When I woke up early the next day to take a shower, I knew I was in trouble. I was very ill, had no energy, and could barely walk to the car. I laid down in the back seat and Siobhan rocketed across the prairie to North Florida Regional in record time. The catheterization was already scheduled, so they were prepared to take me in immediately. Cardiac & Vascular Institute internist Dr. Daniel Van Roy met Siobhan before the procedure and asked if there was anything she wanted to tell him. “Yes,” she said, commandingly. “Just save his life, period. I can’t just go out and find another Bill on some streetcorner.”
Van Roy did as he was told, inserted a stent in the left anterior descending artery, then came out to report that despite suffering an infarction charmingly called The Widowmaker, I was doing swell. A CVI colleague, Dr. Gregory Imperi, visited me in the Intensive Care Unit and discovered a bottle of pills, brought from home, on my table. “What are these doing there?” he wanted to know. I explained I was taking them as part of a University of Tennessee study on the effectiveness of Toremifene in preventing prostate cancer. I knew that blood clots were one of the possible side effects of Toremifene but the prostate coyote was at the door and it was no time to worry about heart attacks. Imperi snatched up the pills, put them in his pocket and said, “No more of these for you. Better the prostate coyote than the big bad wolf.”
The following morning I was moved to a regular hospital room and Dr. Van Roy came to see me. Siobhan was home, feeding the animals, and he asked about her. “She’s a very forceful person, your (presumed) wife." said Dr. VR. “I knew I had to do a good job because I was scared to death to go back and face her if you didn’t make it. Definitely a good woman to have around for heart attacks and other emergencies.” Then he smiled, got up and walked to the door, where Siobhan was just coming in.
“All good?” she asked. “All good!” Van Roy replied with his best grin. Then, after Siobhan turned around, the doc looked at me and ran the first two fingers of his right hand over his forehead, removing imaginary sweat and savoring his escape from the would-be vengeful hands of Siobhan P. Ellison, a woman who takes no prisoners.
Today Is Your Birthday (almost)
Kidding around early in our relationship, I asked Siobhan if she fancied having a pet name, like “darling” or “dear.” I was sure she’d scoff, I’ve never yet had a “honey,” “sweetheart” or “cuddles,” and Siobhan, of all women, would reject them out of hand. “I’ll take both,” she said, and the subject rested there. At age 70, however, I feel she should finally get her wish. So, happiest of birthdays, darling dear, you’re a peach, pit and all. By the way, Doctor Van Roy called today and told me he had to visit a client to deliver very bad news. He wanted to know if you’d go with him.
That’s almost all, folks….but let’s hear a huzzah for the wife, without whom there might very well be a serious PIE shortage.
Lead photo composition by Allen Cheuvront.
