dementia – Page 2 – The Hillhouse

Holding Pattern

December 19, 2013December 22, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Flight, Mommy Mind4 Comments

I’m afraid my last post was probably too emotionally charged. It generated many responses and communications from people and had me wondering if I hadn’t made too much of a stink about things. Even though I expressed myself truthfully, I wonder if it wasn’t a bit self-indulgent. And I wonder if I may have stirred the pot too soon, as it were. I say this now because, after making a big deal of all that’s been going on, I begin to wonder if Dad won’t be here a little longer than I’d originally thought after all…

Why? Because he’s got a big, comfy hospital-style bed in the living room now. A bed which self-inflates and self-deflates in different zones in twenty minute intervals in order to prevent bed sores and keep circulation going, a bed which can raise him up to eat in a sitting position, and lower him down to sleep. He has been given – through this miracle operation of hospice – a full range of gadgets and accessories that promise to make his life cleaner, more comfortable and healthier than it has been over the past few weeks (if not months). All that and his lasting and evident sense of humor are telling me he may stick around for a bit.

I kinda wish I had a bed like that myself to hide out in right about now. Frazzled with a sudden influx of things going on at school and falling behind in a myriad of domestic chores, I haven’t showered in at least three days and my son and I haven’t had a fresh vegetable in nearly a week as I’ve had no time to catch up. I know it’s not just me; this time of year we grown-ups have a lot on our hands. With presents and parties and cards and driveways to shovel, I know I’m not the only one up to my ears in laundry and dirty dishes. Even the gal who drives my son to school in the mornings – usually a fairly upbeat and energetic woman – even she seemed a little worn and tired this morning. I thought I recognized that look, I certainly felt the same. So now that dad and mom are getting into their new groove, I’m feeling a bit of relief. This afternoon we finally have no commitments. No doctor’s appointments (Elihu had his braces put on yesterday), no car pool duty, no chorus to accompany, no students. So I’m taking the opportunity to go grocery shopping. Last night we ate the last of the pasta in the house and rounded things out with leftover party food. Ich. Can’t wait for a salad…

Elihu flies to Chicago this weekend too. I’m so very happy for him, he’s beside himself with anticipation. I’ve never seen him fill the Advent calendar so eagerly (ours is a series of pockets into which we insert a feather a day). I’m happy for him, and also relieved in that I don’t think dad will go while he’s gone. Never know, but I have a feeling. Having the house to myself is most welcome, but at this time of year it can be bittersweet, too. Last year was my only Christmas with Elihu here, and it wasn’t exactly a success. Santa found him alright, but a household of just two can be lonely on Christmas morning. So my heart is lifted to know he’ll be with his baby brothers, grandma and full household. On our end, it will be strange. Dad in his big bed, Andrew wordless, silent, unreadable, and mom chattering away to fill the space. And the tv on behind it all. I’d say jokingly that alcohol is a welcome buffer, but is it then fair to drink in front of Andrew? I don’t know. I really don’t like this situation. Likely I’ll drink. Most likely.

Mom and dad have the same birthday, January 6th. Epiphany. Imagine that. I still find it fascinating. I mean, what are the odds? They’re seven years apart, and their total years always add up to an odd number. A quick tally tells me they’ll be 165 this year. I find myself wondering if dad might wait til then. I wonder. Nothing is certain. How we’ll handle it, how I’ll be able to keep my professional self together until then, and after then. How life continues. I realize I’m sounding like the first person ever to have gone through this, but until an experience is personally yours, it kinda feels like it has no relevance at all to you. And really, it doesn’t. You pay so much more careful attention when you are living through something. You just don’t fully notice or appreciate things until you’re dealing with them. Like buying a car, or getting a haircut, or having a baby. As soon as it’s on your mind you start to seek out information. You want to hear other folk’s take on things. And then when that’s done, it’s off your mind again. And the time in between events is sort of a coasting, a living on auto pilot sort of thing. At least for me it is; it seems I travel through life from one heightened sense of awareness to another, with great wafts of less intense time in between. I feel a queer mix of both right now. With the house soon to be empty, and this great not-knowing going on, I don’t feel I’m really anywhere. Strange place, this nowhere.

The weather might be a bit blustery for travel this weekend, so part of my attention is going to that situation too. I think of my son’s plane, being de-iced, sitting, waiting on the tarmac for the opportunity for departure. Here too is an uncertain situation. He’ll be bringing a good book, a bottle of water and his DS. So he’s prepared for a long wait if need be. Never once in his years of travel has he ever been re-routed on account of weather, and I pray things remain thus. Nothing I can do about the outcome, so I’ll just have to wait and see.

There’s a lot of wait and see these days. Like an airplane in search of safe landing, we’re all just in a holding pattern for now.

Going

December 17, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal...8 Comments

Let me tell you a bit about the scene: Mom and Dad’s house is an open-plan, post and beam beauty in which life takes place in the kitchen – which is the first room you walk into through the garage (as with most of the world, they never, ever use their front door). As soon as you come in, the dining room is just beyond the large kitchen island, and the L of couches to its right. (A Franklin stove sits near the couches but has been dark and unused for the better part of the past two years, unlike decades before when it was well-tended and in daily use.) There is a large tv that bisects the kitchen and the living/dining area, and it is constantly on. Mostly it’s the old black and white movies, sometimes it’s the cooking channel, and in the evenings it’s set to the local weather. Mom has become ever so slightly hard of hearing these days, and so the tv plays at a volume that adds a certain frenetic energy to the room. I always have to turn it down in order to hold a conversation. And through it all, dad – at least the past few years – has either been sitting at the island on a stool, sitting in his chair to the side, or lying down on the nearby couch. Since we four Conants moved him from the stool to the couch this past Sunday night he has lain there ever since, and it’s my suspicion it may well be where he remains until he dies. Because there’s little question about it now: my father is dying.

As I’ve said before, we Conants – at least mom and dad, Bob and Nancy, that is – aren’t very comfortable with physical displays of affections. Or spoken expressions, either I suppose. It was only through a very intentional campaign made by my ex husband years ago (when he was still my very new boyfriend) that I learned to say “I love you” to either of them. Thank goodness it was over the phone – I don’t think I could have done it in person. But at the end of my catch-up calls on Sunday evenings from Chicago to sleepy Greenfield, just as I was about to hang up, Fareed would lean in close to my face and mouth in an exaggerated way ‘AND I LOVE YOU!’ and he’d shake me til I said it. I thank my ex for a couple of things in my life, and this is one of them. From that time forward it because customary to end conversations with an ‘I love you’. But in person, not so much. And after I moved here, even less. Only in the past few months have I made an effort to revive it. Because, well, now’s the time, you know?

When my parents began their post-city lives here they found themselves in a cozy little social group which included a gay couple (that they were gay never registered to me until I was way into my own adulthood – they were simply my beloved Jim and Everett), an ‘older’ (as in my age now) opera singer, husband and wife musicians who ran an old-fashioned farm and maybe a couple extra characters that joined in the parties and concerts over the years. But the core group was always Frank and Martha, Jim and Everett, and Ruthie. Over the past decade I’ve seen all of them die. Except Martha, that is. (One might joke that she aint never dying. And if you knew her, you’d laugh, shake your head and tend to agree.) Since only the trio has been left, it’s naturally had me wondering who would go first. And now I’m pretty sure we know.

Mom did finally call someone to learn our care options at this point. And finally, there it was, “Hospice”. For me it wasn’t a shocker, but the idea hit mom like a train. I heard it in her voice on the phone – she even readily admitted that even she wasn’t emotionally prepared for hospice to be brought up (the suggestion actually surprised her!). Later, when we visited, her eyes began to well with tears as we talked about the next phase. She’s held out til the last possible moment, and while I myself might have done many things differently, none of that matters now. Dad is still happy, so if we can keep him comfortable and healthy, he will die here at home. That, in my world, is a HUGE blessing. But regardless, it is still the death of my mother’s partner of over fifty years we’re talking about here. As much as we might toss it all around like so many common plans for the to-do list, we all know what this means. We are getting ready to have dad die, right here, and very soon. She is facing the biggest good-bye of her life. And after that, the house will be empty. She will be alone. Shit. This is hard. So goddam hard. It’s not like we didn’t know it was coming, either. “So how long did you think he might still live, Mom? Three years? More?” “Oh God no!” she snapped. “But then what, like another year?” I pressed. I’m not sure she herself knew. One doesn’t tend to actually sit down and map this stuff out. “I don’t know. His mother lingered like this for years….” she trailed off. That may have been so, but it looked like we were closer than that. Never know though. You hear stories of folks being put on hospice care and then living for years… Just never really know. But then again you kinda do….

Now that it’s real I feel a mix of three things: first, concern for my mother (and Martha too). How will she react? Will she allow us to see her cry? Childbirth gets so heavy that all modesty goes out the window; will she behave in a similar way with the death of her spouse? How does this work exactly?? Next, my brother. Just how will he react? How will this affect him? His drinking? Will this be what he needs to finally rise up and get healthy or will he sink to his own final funk? And then I myself feel a queer mix of sorrow and relief. The two battle it out inside me; when I take a closer look at his existence, it seems we only want him around us for ourselves, plain and simple. He himself would probably greatly appreciate an escape from this tired, confused body. But even as my mother had admitted a few weeks back, just having him there – even if he’s asleep, checked out, for all intents and purposes ‘not there’, his energy and presence is still very much there. And you feel it. You just know he’s there in the room. And it makes a difference. We both try to imagine the house without dad in it somewhere (as it’s been for the past quarter century) and the house seems almost pointless. Good thing mom has that goddam tv to fill the house up with crap and distraction I guess. Sigh. Elihu has great compassion for mom and her need to ‘fill the space’. “She just doesn’t want to really understand how far things have gone. She’s scared, so she tries to ignore it.” Yeah kid, probably a good bit of truth to that. Whenever I mutter about mom under my breath he says “I understand. She doesn’t mean it. She’s just trying to figure out how to behave”. Yeah, once again, thanks for keeping me on track. This isn’t easy for any of us.

When we went over earlier today, dad was resting on the couch. It was a different sort of resting now. Having continued to lose weight, his cheeks took on an extra sunken look in his horizontal position. Honestly, in his current condition, if you just glanced at him, you might think he was already gone. But no, he is there. He is there. Still. While Elihu chatted with grandma, tv continuing to do its thing, I sat next to dad, hoping for something. Some new pearl, some word, a smile…. Sadly, gone was my hope for a cute anecdote or story, it was all he could do to recount his two childhood pals by name for Elihu last time; now he related tiny blurred scenes to me, and all I could do was to try and understand what he was seeing as best as I could. Which I noticed became increasingly hard to do as mom continued to badger me with useless and uninteresting facts about this and that… a constant stream of crap that may as well have come from the goddam nightly news… Can’t that wait? I’m thinking, but biting my tongue lest it come out as I think it might… Please, lady, just shut up!! Can’t you see I’m trying to hear what dad is saying? But I don’t move, my focus is essential here. I listen, then I place my hand on his. We are connected now by touch, and I swear I feel him relax. His eyes have been closed the whole time. “Hi Dad, it’s me, just sayin hi”. He opens his eyes and smiles gently. “I love you so very much, dad” I tell him. And in a not-too-faint voice he answers me “Oh Elizabeth, I love you so very much”. Then he closes his eyes again. But my hand is still on his, we are still engaged with each other. Mom comes over to us and leans over the couch. I hope she doesn’t stay long, because she’ll probably start asking him what he wants or trying to make sense with him, asking him things that require answers – hell, that require opinions. And dad just doesn’t care now. Can’t you see that, lady? I’m thinking. Dad opens his eyes and looks at mom, saying “Pop is here…” then trails off. Mom laughs it off as the nonsensical mis-firings of an Alzheimer’s-riddled brain, and thankfully, she leaves. But I know that something is going on in there, and I stay with it. Me, I believe he’s just seen his father. His Pop. A pause. He closes his eyes and smiles. “I am in pleasure” he says, with a slight tone of humor. But then again, I take it to mean that he’s feeling ok too. He’s letting me know. “Susan” he then says, his eyes opening and looking a bit off into space. “You mean Susan, your niece?” “Yes, Susan. Where is she?” he asks. Now me, I personally believe he’s probably just seen Susan himself. She knows he’s coming soon, so she’s letting herself be seen. “Your niece Susan died about a year and a half ago. It was rather sudden. She was living with Jean in Florida. She got very sick and died.” What else to say? Sorry was not what this was about. He seemed to be thinking of – if not actually seeing – family members that were now gone. Sorry was the opposite of what was going on here now – all I felt was ‘yeah, this is it. Yes, there is some love and comfort awaiting him when he goes.’ And thank goodness! It makes me feel much better about things. A moment passed after the Susan thing, then he raised a finger and pointed a bit out and to the right… “who are all those people waiting by the curve?” he asked. “Oh, Dad, I wish I could see them too, I wish I knew who they are, but I don’t.” As if to keep things real, keep humor in the house (a staple of our family) he summons a bigger voice and in a funny accent says “I weesh to be reech”. He repeats it again, closes his eyes, and a wide, happy smile settles on his face.

This is the fork in the road at which many of my friends may choose to part from my company. Because for me, I do not believe dad’s words are meaningless bits of information, retrieved randomly from disparate areas of the brain…. I do not see this as a purely physical phenomenon taking place. Surely it is on some level just that, but there is another equally ‘real’ phenomenon occurring now which is not something than can as yet be quantified by science. I recognize my father is becoming less vibrationally in tune with this reality, and he is now becoming aware, if only in the faintest way, of the new reality he’ll soon be joining. Bunk and booey to my neurotransmitter-as-only-real-data-channel thinking friends, I know. My dear friends of the ‘it’s either working or it aint’ school of thinking will know dad’s behavior to be nothing more than a failing system of data transmission. In short: a body breaking down. Yeah, I’d agree with that. But I’m going to take that other path from here on, the one that knows we are more than an organic machine, and that there are countless energies we are a part of that no meter or machine can measure. I know that ‘real’ can be real without tests, trials and placebos. My dad’s death is certainly a real experience to him, and that, ultimately serves as the Truth here and now. Quantifying or qualifying his Truth does seem rather silly, don’t you think? A moot point really.

One day I do hope we’ll have the opportunity for a good laugh together about it all as we re-evaluate our Earthly lessons and kick back for a little respite after our exhausting lives on this tricky planet. Cuz I believe this is one tough-assed school. And I believe we’ve come here to work on things. We’ve found the right groupings and scenarios and countries, bodies, talents and occupations – the whole shebang – so that we might most effectively learn what it is we need to in order to become better. Dare I say, more Godlike. When I put it like that, kinda makes me laugh. I mean man, this planet don’t exactly seem like a good choice for a mission like that, huh? Pretty crappy place sometimes. Sure aint easy, even when you do have it easy. Plus there is this existential uncertainty which thrums through us our whole lives, nagging at us to try and answer it if we dare listen. But thankfully, there are lots of diversions here to muffle its drone. Yeah, you can easily go through your life and never give a shit about anything but just getting by. The challenge, however, is to care, and to widen your sphere of caring and loving influence. And we all know that is much, much easier said than done. The distractions are so very tempting – and easy. But a life spent mostly on the path of love and caring is one spent pretty well, at least I think so. Certainly more of a step ahead than not. And my dad has made many steps forward here. He’s also had to carry some burdens that I wish he hadn’t. He grew up knowing he was loved, but he grew up in a culture where love was not expressed. A handshake from dad before he went off to the Army. Nurses instead of mother. Boarding school from a young age. I’m glad that now, in these final, restful moments on the couch that I can tell him I love him.

Because if he’s going soon, all he really needs to know is that we love him. The rest will sort itself out on the other side.

Out, Away, Over

November 28, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind2 Comments

A lot has happened in the past twenty-four hours. Just yesterday Elihu and I awoke to a cold house. I knew we were approaching the witching hour, and had begun to keep the house at a brisk fifty-five degrees in order to stall the inevitable. I’d done my paperwork and made the calls to receive our long-anticipated annual heating oil grant, so now it was just a waiting game. My heart positively sank to think I might have to live out the holiday weekend in a cold house. I had lots to do, and doing it in forty degrees did not appeal. Thankfully, I learned I’d been relieved of this fate when we returned home from school yesterday to find footprints in the snow and a respectable seventeen inches of oil in our tank. You know that feeling when your paycheck first hits your checking account? That blissful moment of security, of hope… of possibility? That’s exactly what I felt when I retrieved the oil-soaked yardstick from the tank. To know that we’ll be warm for the next couple of months gives me the greatest relief. This oil is a gift I fully appreciate. I no longer take something as basic as this for granted – the way I did in my previous life. In my fine, suburban Northshore home, going without heat never once appeared on my radar – not even close. But here, now, it’s a real concern. There’s no pipe that magically delivers fuel into your home. The thermostat no longer hovers endlessly, mindlessly, in the mid seventies all winter long. (I remember my mother telling me as a youngster to go and put a sweater on if I was cold. Now, my kid tells me the same thing when I begin to complain about the chill inside our house!) There are consequences here in the country for not properly budgeting your resources. And even while I admire the replenished level in my tank, I do that know I’ll have to start saving for my next tank soon. But this does give me a week or two of respite. And that’s pretty big. Definitely something I’m thankful for.

And Elihu is gone now too. No longer a bittersweet event, instead it’s a time I savor and use wisely. Like my fuel oil, it too won’t last, so I must use it as efficiently as possible. Last night I allowed myself some veg time, as I waited for his father to call and let me know he’d arrived ok in Florida. With about two hours to kill, I grazed my way through the leftovers in the fridge as the comedy channel played. I surfed the internet, seeking out all the information I could on the culture of Orlando. With Steven Colbert in the background, I perused Wikipedia articles and poured over images. It struck me that this place was very sci-fi like in its growth. It reminded me of the bizarre city of Benidorm, Spain. Once a nothing little coastal town, it sprung up virtually overnight, growing into a cluster of vertical glass hotels and artificially created tropical gardens. I first saw the place when I awoke from a nap in the backseat of our car. It was nighttime, and we were driving north to Barcelona. I thought I was dreaming at first; in the middle of a vast, black nothingness arose the futuristic vision of a gleaming city. When I figured out that I wasn’t still dreaming I awoke the others and alerted the driver. This we had to see. Glad we did – it was probably the most surreal place I’ve ever visited. Nothing natural about it. No evidence (that we could see) of any history or organic pattern of growth. This was a cancer on the land that had struck quickly. It strikes me that Orlando is much the same. First came the early settlers and later the orange farm magnates (Dr. Phillip Phillips, crazy!) and finally giant tourism-based corporations (Walt and friends) and then boom! – from the 1980s til now the place has exploded. It’s a manufactured destination, like its Spanish cousin. And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. And if one goes there with that in mind, and one visits not for the indigenous, historical characteristics, but instead goes with the goal of experiencing a fantastically fabricated, commercial smorgasbord, then I suppose it’s a fine place to visit. I’m not a fan of the whole Disney/theme park thing in general, but I readily cop to enjoying the luxury of a five-star hotel. I remember well what it was to travel, stay and dine in top-tier luxury. And no matter one’s ethics or values, I believe few humans would ever disdain such an experience. And that’s likely what Orlando is built upon. Transient luxury and faux finery are better than none at all, I suppose.

Elihu called around eleven. He was beyond thrilled to finally be in Florida. (A couple of hours earlier in the Albany airport he’d said to me “I think I’ve been to all fifty states now.” And yes, after a seven thousand mile tour with his dad this past summer, plus all of his previous travels, I agreed he’d come close. “How about Hawaii?” I asked. “No” he answered, “that doesn’t count; because Hawaii is its own country”. I assured him it was not, that it was the fiftieth state. Impressed by this fact, he added it to the list of places he aspired to visit, coming in right behind New Zealand and Australia.) He was beside himself with anticipation being in a place where it was not only warm (when just this afternoon he’d been lobbing snowballs at me) but where there was also an abundance of wildlife. His father had told us that the place was “sick with water birds”, so he was stoked. I’d even packed Elihu our favorite pair of binoculars – this was an opportunity no self-respecting birder could miss. And dad had reported seeing a golden-colored tree frog in his friend’s pool. This trip promised some serious stuff for a nature-loving young man.

He and his father had called me from their table at a restaurant in the Orlando airport. It was situated inside a giant atrium with both an enormous palm tree and a Christmas tree bedecked with lights and holiday decorations. The height of the ceiling impressed him as did the panoramic view of the airport beyond. It being nighttime, he could finally see outside – and was aware of distance in a way that he cannot perceive at all by day’s light. He told me he could see lights twinkling in all directions. “The ceiling here is like nine stories tall and I can see outside for miles!” he told me excitedly. My heart rose in my chest at his joy. How happy I was that he got it; that he was fully getting his sense of place. I was also very thankful that his first vision of this place was at night. I would never have told him that, as it would bring attention to the vision thing, and likely turn our conversation sour. But this was all I could think as he continued to tell me with great, childish excitement, about all the new and wonderful things he was seeing for the first time. I was so grateful for the dark of night, for the sparkling lights and the promise of a magical stay to come. ‘Enjoy this my dearest son’, I thought to myself, ‘because like your most fantastic dreams, before long this too will be nothing but a memory.’

Elihu safely and happily off in his own world for the next few days, I went next door to see how life had been going for mom and dad. Andrew had spent much of the past week drunk, and dad had just had a particularly bad episode. Following a long and challenging night, mom had finally gotten to bed after four a.m. With these two variables in the mix, plus a visit that needed to be made to housebound friend Martha, we agreed that our Thanksgiving would not be a sit down dinner at a given time, but rather we’d adjust ourselves to things as they happened. Mom agreed that she’d still make all the food (this gives her joy and purpose, believe me) and she’d just set it out for us to eat as we showed up. I’m still not sure how this will all happen; a trip to Martha’s means that dad is left alone. If Andrew and I go along as well, that is. Maybe I’ll stay back with dad. Not sure. Might have to bring some Scarlatti along with me! Hm. I begin to think that this might be a nice little opportunity to spend some time alone with dad – without others (namely mom) around. Mom tends to speak for him more and more… taking away what little voice he has left. He’s much more himself when she’s not around (no mystery there – she’s been hen-pecking at him for fifty years!) Yeeks, such a relationship they have. Symbiotic, I guess. They each seem to stoke the other in ways that work. Not saying it’s healthy, but it’s been going for decades. On some levels it obviously works for them. Who am I to judge? Happy or not, they are deeply linked and dependant upon each other. I guess it’s getting scarier for mom these days, and that’s upping her need to control things. She’s not from a generation that expresses themselves well – or at all – so that makes things all the more difficult at this stage of their lives. At least she’s giving in to it slowly and is finally accepting help (been pushing the in-home respite caregiver thing well over a year and only this week has she had someone to the house!!). Yeah, tomorrow will be a strange day for all of us Conants.

Fareed’s family is beginning to turn a corner too. Nelly, I understand, is now living with Fareed and his new wife (in our old home – and in the very room we’d once planned for his folks to live in as they aged. Same plan, different spouse.) She’s receiving some in-home care too. As both she and Martha have begun to have in-home care, my own mother is finally coming around to the idea that this is a good solution. Far cheaper than a full-on nursing home. And, though no one likes to talk about it, I added today that it increases the likelihood of Nelly or dad dying at home. I know neither of us – my ex’s family nor mine – have ever spoken in such specific language about this final stage, but at the very least I am confident that all four of them would hope to die at home rather than at an old folks’ home. Imagine them comfy at home, with a nurse to visit and make sure they’re taken care of, family around to visit and keep them connected… until that final time when they just become too tired to stay around much longer…. could one wish for a better end?

Most of us contemporary American types aren’t good at talking or thinking about death. But it’s a-comin no matter. So I’m readying myself as best I can. Almost envy my peers who had no warning. Whose parents went quickly, tidily. Yeah, right. That’s easy for me to say. I don’t suppose any one way of losing a parent is easier than any other. No easy way to see this through, no matter what happens. But it will happen. And for those folks who are living through a lingering, meandering process, it can give those final holidays and landmarks a surreal and almost sickeningly poignant feel… knowing damn well this is the last time, knowing damn well that by Spring he either won’t know you any more… or he’ll be gone. Or maybe he’ll live another ten years knowing no one. Maybe. Anyway, you’re getting there. And you look back on last year and realize that it was your last, real Thanksgiving. Wow. It’s over. And yet, somehow, it’s not. Not yet. Not quite. A strange netherworld in which to live.

Being out of a resource, being far from home, or seeing a long-standing tradition come to a close are all things that get one to thinking. Thinking about the things we cherish, the things we take for granted, and the very transient nature of life. I know it’s hard to convince a teenager or a twenty-something that life is fleeting, but that’s ok. You’re not supposed to think that way when you’re young. You shouldn’t be thinking like that, or at least I don’t think so. Instead, you should be living those moments, feeling what it is to be in that experience, smack in the middle of your life. It’s that first half of life that gives you the standards by which you make your later-in-life observations (you know, like the ones I’m making here!). You can’t truly realize how precious things are until you know different. I do realize that life doesn’t always work like this for everyone, but it seems the usual course for most. Me, I find myself looking back and marveling over the routines I’d always taken for granted as the ordinary landscape of my life. And actually, I’m finding a lot of extraordinary in my past that I hadn’t quite noticed before. Never know what ya got til it’s gone… or til it’s almost gone, I should say.

Tonite I’m thinking to myself how blessed is the ordinary. How thankful I am for all of the ordinary I’ve ever known. I may go without for a time, or I may go for a time knowing true abundance, but either way, I must find as much contentment as I can with whatever it is that I have. If things aren’t going so well at present, at least I know that I have a future to look forward to. (Sometimes it’s nice to know that things keep changing.) Happily, I can say that in this moment, on this day, I’m thankful to have just enough.

Sad Planet

November 15, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal...2 Comments

What a bittersweet and frustrating planet this is to live upon. Please know that I do realize I don’t by have it particularly hard by the greater standards of the world, yet in just the past few hours I’ve come to feel at the absolute end of my patience with this stupid place (or, if not out of patience, perhaps one might say ‘beyond disillusioned’ with this silly existence.) Just what the hell kind of joke is this world?? I’m done with trying to understand, trying to justify, trying to learn from it all. I’m fucking done. And the scary thing is, I have hardly begun the real adventure. I may not like the jowly face that stares back at me from reverse-camera skype images, I may not be able to casually drop a couple of dress sizes without much effort anymore, and simply tossing off situps or running a half mile may not be such mindlessly easy activities as I remember them to be…. But BAH! This sort of stuff is nothing! These things, however surprising or abhorrent they may have seemed to me at first, they don’t begin to approach the level of personal challenges that lay yet ahead. Losing one’s looks, yeah, that sucks. Losing one’s physical prowess, hard on the ego. But losing one’s parents – and then having it happen ever so slowly – I think that sucks a whole lot more. And experiencing it all with that quintessential, ‘keep-up-the-appearances-at-any-cost’ vibe of last century’s generation is just plain exhausting.

Things in our family changed tonight. I’ve been around for half a century, and during that time I’ve only seen my mother cry twice. Tonight was one of them. And I can’t even say she was crying really, but her eyes filled with moisture, and for the first time I can recall, I could actually feel a breach in her defenses. For just an instant I saw her, as a woman, as a wife, as a person about to be left terribly, irreversibly alone. It was the first time I’d seen any honest emotion in my mother in perhaps decades. Well, emotion other than outrage or anger (granted, she laughs sometimes too). As any student of spiritual life may recognize, anger (outrage being another manifestation of the same) is simply an expression of fear. While I myself had learned of that years ago, I don’t think it truly sank in for me until I came to live here, and was forced to re-examine my own personal habits and history in the wake of my ‘great life change’. I too had felt a good amount of rage at the world throughout my life – at my partner, at my circumstances, at many things – and had never thought twice about expressing it. In other words, I expressed myself just fine (and often loudly), and without much editing. And I never stopped to wonder at the origin of such rage. I guess it never struck me as something that needed any examination. Yeah, I’d read about it before, but until I put it into the context of my own personal experiences, I didn’t really get that rage came from fear. And being afraid is, well, understandable. This is one goddam scary place to live. Yeah, I can say that I sympathize with those who live in fear. In fact, I think you’d have to be fairly dull-witted not to be impressed with the opportunities we have here for some truly fearful situations. Having said that, I’m usually the first to be chill in the face of true stress; from surviving a broken neck as well as a handful of other life-heavy episodes, I’ve fared pretty well in the face of crap. Doesn’t mean I welcome any more of it though. And it sure doesn’t mean that I’m still not pretty goddam angry about things.

My mother too has never ruminated over the reasons for her emotions (that I know). Thankfully, the study of one’s own psyche and emotional world had become a practical and accepted life skill by my generation’s coming of age, but regrettably, my parents never had such tools on their side. Hardly. Instead, a stoic attitude, stiff upper lip and general disdain for everyone else kept a person moving successfully forward in life (glaring wounds and flagrant injustices be damned and ignored; keep your eyes looking ahead, pay no mind to the nasty reality…) And so, nearing her eighth decade here, my mother still does a yeoman’s job of keeping it all inside and pretending nothing’s wrong. That it’s all business as usual. (Btw way, I borrow ‘yeoman’ from my mother. A great word; her generation’s gift to me.) So I can’t blame her for any of this. Of the crazy, ‘it’ll be fine tomorrow’ kind of talk. It’s a strange new world now, because my mother still seems to me like the keeper of all answers, the ultimate knower-of-all-things, and in spite of more and more evidence that shows otherwise (in no way downplaying the immense amount of shit she really does know!), I just can’t seem to get it. She’s the sane one in the house, the one who keeps it together. The one who does things right (or as my ex would have half-joked she’s ‘white and right’), and she’s the one who lets everyone else know that she knows. Ok, so maybe she does that with a 1950’s vintage passive-aggressive sort of flair, but hey, at least everyone knows what’s up. Well, so that’s the way it’s been for the fifty years I’ve known her. But now, in quick, minute little steps, the relationship seems to be changing. The power dynamic is shifting, just a bit. It’s not that I need or want to be right, or on top of things, or taking charge, no. I don’t need more stuff. It’s challenge enough just trying to keep up with a simple life. But mom cannot do it all herself, and as I began to interject myself into the equation tonight, lifting dad off the floor, moving furniture to barricade him safely into his bed, I realized things had changed.

Tonight the situation just kinda forced our hands. When I arrived, dad was on his knees by the guest bed, too weak to sit, too weak to pull himself up. (That he had wandered into the guest bedroom and not his own presents a new level of concern.) My mother, bent over with arthritis, was not able to move him. My brother had thankfully arrived to assist, but by the time they’d been at it a while and I had gotten there, nothing was changed. Now I myself have very little core strength these days, but I was somehow able to lift dad and get him back onto the bed. From there I got him into a lying position, but he protested and for nearly an hour made efforts to sit back up – only with no ability to follow through and even walk across the room. I’m not sure how mom would have played it had I not arrived. She talked to dad tonight as if he were as well-reasoned as ever. In fact, he is markedly changed from even a few days ago. His talk was absolutely surreal, plus he was distressed, and even sometimes uncharacteristically angry, at being confined to his bed. Logic was of no gain; he had no understanding at all of where he was, or why he was there at all. He did still know us, and he did still formulate sentences, however this time, and for the first time, they began to more closely approximate mere gibberish. At one point I said “dad, what’s your favorite Scarlatti?” and without missing a beat he replied “D major”. Ah. Mom and I smiled at each other. I made a mental note to bring it up to speed again… maybe play it for him some time… Elihu and dad have had this made-up, Eastern European-sounding language in which the two speak for sometimes great lengths of time – they use gestures, crazy facial expressions and in general, sound quite plausible. And funny. I nodded at Elihu to give it a try as the four of us sat there in a dazed lull following an episode of moving dad from floor to bed. Elihu leaned in, and said something to dad. And wouldn’t ya know, dad gave it right back to him. All four of us laughed! It was the most remarkable thing – and such sweet relief to laugh like that! Elihu gave it another go, and we had another couple rounds of solid laughs. Dad couldn’t keep it going, but the thing was, he still got there. He still had that thing. Dad has always had a talent for impressions, for quirky, off-the-beaten-path humor. And in spite of how much of his life is lost to him, a spark of this remains burning. Hope, in one tiny form.

We managed to get dad lying down, tucked tightly into his covers, and I enforced the side of the bed with antique ladder backed chairs and a large hope chest. We fed him some of that crappy, over-sweet nutritional drink that old folks use to keep up their calorie intake, then we gave him half of a sleeping pill. As I sat with mom on the bed I began to pick up on a change in her spirit. I sensed the faintest beginnings of defeat. So I put my arm around her – something that just never happens in this house – and felt that it might have helped a little bit. Not a lot though. There’s just too much heartbreak here to make much of a dent in. But I told her I loved her, and that I had no idea how hard this was for her. Elihu leaned in to kiss grandpa and tell him how much he loved him. And my father, for as feeble and absent as he’s become, he simply beamed at his grandson. His eyes sparkled, and he told Elihu how very much he loved him too. This, I thought, is the happy ending. No matter what may happen, this is it.

As we were walking through the garage to our car I heard Elihu sniffling. And then I realized he was crying. Really crying. I didn’t offer a hug, or contact of any kind; it just didn’t seem the time. He needed some space to digest what was happening. Man, it just didn’t seem fair. He’s a young kid, and his grandpa such an old man. I really wish they’d had more time together. Crap. When we got in the car I said “well, you’ve had ten wonderful years together. We can be thankful for that.” We rode home in silence.

Had a nice supper, enjoyed some laughs, and we spent a moment just sitting on the couch, arms around each other, saying nothing. Mom called to say that dad had fallen right out with the sleeping pill. Mom’s life has always been fueled by agendas, by plans, goals… and now she finds herself zapped of her usual purpose and forward momentum. I can hear a shift in her voice. She sounds smaller somehow. Like she’s finally giving in. I hear it, and I wish I could just tell her that she doesn’t need to give up or give in – she just needs to surrender some things…. and other things will fill those places one day. I want to tell her this, but of course, I don’t. But I do tell her that I love her, and that I’ll call her in the morning.

I find relief in knowing that my son’s asleep now, and so is my father. But like me, I’m guessing my mother is still up late, not quite knowing what it is she should be doing. Feeling loose in the world, alone, the line to her anchor being cut away one thread at a time while she looks on, helpless…. Like me, I’ll bet she’s thinking this is all one great big let-down. All of this life, and then this is the crappy way it has to end? But she’ll put on a good show of it come morning, I know. And she’ll keep it up for a while longer yet. And me, I’ll make the best of it too. I’ll play this game as well as I’m able, and I’ll make an effort to keep humor and love alive in my small world. For the most part I think I’ll go with the half-full attitude. But for the moment, I can honestly say that I’m not thrilled to be here at all.

Tonight, this seems like a very sad planet indeed.

Here, Not Here

November 10, 2013November 10, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind2 Comments

There’s this nagging feeling I can’t get rid of in my stomach. I’m lying in bed, trying to sleep without help from a pill. It’s just not working. So I try to go into the dread just a bit to see what’s at the core of it. Maybe if I can name it I can quiet it down – at least for now – and finally get some sleep. What is it? I wonder… Is it dad? Yes, that’s part of it. Is it the neighbors we ran into tonight? Her girls were just the tiniest things when we moved here, now the eldest daughter talks with confidence about certain far away colleges, and a career in marine biology… Is it my own son, with his feet growing big and his legs getting hairier? Yes, it’s all of these. Each one stirs a familiar tugging inside, but I know that there is one that looms larger than the others tonight. And finally I can’t stand it. I forsake that perfect toasty nest I’d at last made in the covers, I rise up to my knees, and I look out of the window above my bed. I see a serene picture of our garage and chicken coop, lit gently from within by one red heating bulb. Beyond it, I see only blackness. The sort of scene that reminds one of a tomten fairy tale; a quiet, timeless farm carved out of the endless woods, a small homestead made cozy by its simplicity and isolation. On nights when the moon is full, it casts a deeper charm on the outbuildings, and they seem to glow in contrast to the forest beyond. But this nightscape is not to be much longer, I may not even see it like this for another full moon. Like my disappearing father, like my own tiny child who lives only in memory now, and like all the other inevitable changes of my private universe, a silent transition is already underway. Soon the darkness will be gone forever. Before long the lights of a house will pierce our dark and quiet corner of the world. Nothing, it appears, is sacred. Nor is anything forever. And I just can’t get used to it.

Once, at the home of a piano student, I happened on a simple children’s book that was laying out. In a few minutes I’d read the whole thing, and by the last line I found myself in tears. I’d thought this same thing many time, but had never dared to give expression to it. It was about all the ‘last times’ of childhood. How one never knows if this time will be the last. The last time a mother can ever pick up her child, the last time he’ll call her mommy, the last time she’ll read her child a bedtime story… there are a myriad of lasts, and yet one can never know for certain which moments they are. I think now of my father. Tonight mom told me that he hasn’t been downstairs since my visit a couple of days ago. We’d had a bit of a heated exchange on the phone the other night as I continued to lobby for some in-home nursing help. She’d hung up on me. Although she still believes that dad will manage to march downstairs again tomorrow for breakfast, business as usual, I myself don’t think so. Instead, the very real possibility occurs to me that we have finally experienced a last time here. The last time dad ever came downstairs. The last time. I arrive at that final, looming idea: this may well be where the true last time will happen. Right there, in the bedroom which looks out into the same woods as mine, in the bedroom with years of cat hair embedded in every upholstered surface, in the bedroom with photos of Andrew and me as babies still sit displayed on the bureau after five decades, there, on the right side of the bed – on my father’s side of the bed – that is where he will experience his own last time. That is, very likely, where my father will die.

I’m a sentimental person, and that sort of leaning will of course give this awareness of finality even more charge. I know that I’m probably dwelling more deeply on these passages than some folks would. (At the same time, I think any human can easily understand ambivalence around change.) But that’s the only way I can live through it all. I need to name it, to face it and to savor it before I can let it go. I need to bear active witness, I need to engrave that memory into my system, I need to take it with me as best I can. To preserve the essence of what this thing that I loved felt like. It’s a challenge for me to be simply pragmatic about it, and in fact, I really can’t. I can’t understand change without feeling a burning nostalgia. Sometimes in order to lend perspective and maybe take some of the sting out of it, I try to imagine a time just a couple of hundred years earlier, and I picture the change that’s taken place long before the world came to look as it does now. I imagine the Native Americans of Saratoga Lake, watching as their sacred sites were defiled and built-up by these white people from somewhere else… then I imagine the large parcels of unbuilt land throughout town, the disappointment of certain homeowners when the space around them appeared to shrink as investors continued to build upon the remaining vacant quadrants of land. I imagine all of the tiny disappointments, all of the hearts that had to acquiesce with deep regret the bittersweet changes around them.

I see the business people making these visible and profound changes in our physical environment. And I understand their detachment around such things too. They are merely dealing with a product and a service. (Be damned the wake left behind in its many forms, all of us must simply learn to live with resulting change!) “You can’t stop progress” people like to say. The implication is that progress is good. That progress is desired. Yeah, well, cancer is progress. Nuff said.

I feel a little better now, at least a little more sleepy. All I can do is be as zen as I can about the changes coming; I will savor these final nights of our deep, black forest, I will drink in all the tiny familiarities of my dad while they’re here, I’ll enjoy this magical time of a ten year old boy’s life, and I’ll be present and grateful for every last bit of it all. So that by the time today becomes yesterday, while it won’t be here to look upon anymore in my physical world, it will still exist somewhere. It will be here, cherished and alive, forever in my heart.

Changing Times

November 6, 2013November 16, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Pics5 Comments

It’s good that it happens gradually. Like pregnancy, kind of. You get some time to get used to things becoming different, time to get adjusted to your changing and new reality. Now it’s for sure. You’re not exaggerating, you’re not guessing, you’re not making this worse than it is. Now you can truly see that your mom or dad is not the person they once were. Yes, you recognize them somewhere ‘in there’; you can still recognize those certain little familiar things – a mannerism, a tone of voice or signature gesture – and you know that yes, that is definitely still my dad. And yet….

Today my mother was working as an election judge all day at the polls, so she needed me to check in on dad. Today also happened to be my busiest day at school, so I had to pull the emergency card to run home during recess duty. Apparently the night before he’d fallen to the floor next to the bed, and since mom couldn’t get him up again, she’d just given him a pillow and covered him with a blanket for the time being. Somehow she was able to get him back into bed before I got there this morning, but I myself was hard-pressed to even get him in an upright, sitting position on the side of the bed. This was a new stage of the game. I don’t remember it being like this. I’d thought it might take some cajoling, some sweet talk and encouragement to get him up and moving, but this time those tactics were just not enough.

When I arrived, dad began to speak to me quite normally, and even with some degree of refreshed enthusiasm at seeing me. But within a mere few words I realized that we’d gone into a new territory, one which we’d visited briefly before, but from which he eventually returned. Having spent a half hour with him on this visit, I could tell that there wasn’t a whole lot of hope for him returning to his sentient self of just one week ago. I was still holding out hope that Elihu could bring him out of it, but for the mean time it was all on me. So I listened to him talk. I tried to get a sense of what he was describing, the scenes he was trying to convey to me, and who was there with him. I tried to learn the general feeling of his remembered encounters – knowing full well they were from his dreams (he sleeps nearly twenty hours a day) – but also knowing that in his dreams lay the keys to understanding what still resonated as important – and even urgent – in my father’s mind.

He told me that he had been attending a party at someone’s house – as he awoke from his sleep he patted the bed sheets and told me ‘this’ belonged to harpsichordist Louis Bagger and dad said he only hoped he could take good enough care of it… I wondered if by his linens he meant a harpsichord… perhaps a loaner from his old friend? A waste of time to try and make literal sense of it… just follow… He went on to describe this party… it was in the home of some arts patrons – Jewish people, he added – and everyone is very keen on being seen, on having being invited… it’s a very tony affair, yet the food has all been brought by guests. He tried several times to recall the names of people who were present for the party, yet he stumbled, pointed his finger into the air as if to prod the memory loose, but gave up. I re-directed dad to fill in more details for me about the gathering. What did the place look like? It was someone’s home. A fine one, a very large place too, and packed to the gills. Where there musicians present? Yes, as celebrated guests. Are you one of them? No, but I’ve been invited. Do you feel uncomfortable there? No, but I don’t usually know these people well. And so went our conversation, as I tried to glean insight into my dad, his fears, his joys, and the things that, after fifty years’ absence from his single life as a professional musician in New York City, still loomed large somewhere deep in his psyche.

Things morphed again when he began to descend into a more surreal landscape; dad’s own father (whom we as grandchildren had called Papaw) was there, and I found it interesting that he referred to my grandfather as ‘Papaw’ and not ‘father’ as he would have addressed him back then. Dad told me he was concerned that Papaw was not entirely happy with the party. Papaw was expressing some dissatisfaction, perhaps even slight contempt for the goings-on. (That sounded in- character for him; my grandfather was a successful, self-made man, one from a family of thirteen children… he was a sitting judge and a man of some means; a slightly egocentric sort of fellow who looked down on folks who didn’t demonstrate self-respect or carry themselves with dignity. He had made it known that he didn’t entirely approve of dad’s choice of careers.) Then dad took on a new facial expression, and looked up at me. “Is Nana anywhere about?” he asked me, slightly concerned. Again, interesting to me. Because while ‘Nana’ registers as my grandmother, my dad had always called his mom ‘mother’… his use of ‘Nana’ blended the lines between generations in a dreamlike, nebulous sort of way. No matter, I knew who he meant, and so I answered that I didn’t think she was here now, but that she was doing well. He seemed worried about her. “Is Nana coming later?” he asked. And I answered him that she was. It seemed to give him a small measure of relief, and when I saw that, I felt my somewhat misleading answer was in fact the best thing I could have said. This was a new world, and with it came new rules.

My ten year old son understands well. Several times tonight he’d wink both his eyes at me (like his dad he can’t close just one) as a signal to me that he knew, that he got it, that he was right there with me. Dad would say something bizarre, and we’d just look gently to each other as if to confirm that things were still ok. What was of prime importance here was not getting facts or timelines correct, but to understand the emotions at the bottom of all the remembrances. What was the gist of what dad was feeling? This was what was most important. What he was feeling physically – that was another ballgame, and soon we found ourselves a bit limited by those new rules as well.

Dad’s had a hernia for a while, but it only bothers him every so often. Maybe I got him up into a sitting position too abruptly, I don’t know, but for whatever reason his hernia is back today, and it hurt him so much that he wasn’t able to stand up and make it down the stairs for a proper supper. (Secretly I wonder if this might not be the first night of his life that he’s no longer able to join the family downstairs for dinner. Is that new era now upon us?) I’d brought some delicious home-made chicken soup (made with the chickens we’d butchered last week) for supper, and now, as it was apparent that we wouldn’t be dining downstairs, I heated up our bowls and brought them to the bedroom. I held dad’s bowl and watched him eat. Funny how I delighted in seeing such small, insignificant gestures again… the things I’ve seen him do all my life but never really noticed til right now. How with so much of his word recovery gone, so much of his life’s context gone, so much twisted around and re-arranged in his head, yet look how he can still wipe his beard in that way – how he can still take a napkin from me without a second’s pause and use it exactly as he should… how naturally he pockets it, and pulls it out to use again… the way he did it, it is still so him… Such silly nothings really, stuff that everybody does. But seeing him do these few, small and natural things brought me immense joy. My wrist was straining to hold the bowl of soup for him, and my cheek muscles were getting hot from smiling so hard. I was focusing all on my father. It was an unusual place for me to be. As he’s sunk into his dementia, I’ve been more easily ‘allowed’ into his mind, into his world. After a lifetime of tentative eye contact and the most fleeting emotional connections, this is precious stuff here.

We visited like this for about a half hour, during which I fed him some toast (home made sage bread from us) and some chocolate Boost (old folks’ nutritional drink) through a straw (mom had none, now she’s stocked. In future she’ll need straws all the time, I’m pretty sure) and I got him lying back down again and comfy. Gone now is the strong, invisible wall that’s been between us our whole lives. Now, his condition makes it possible – and easy even – for me to express my love for him. For me even to hold his hand. I can remember over the past few years looking at dad’s hands and wishing I could hold them for no good reason. In my family we just don’t do such things. God no. The emotional separation and fear that exists in my parent’s home is almost a real enough thing to knock upon with your fists… Just this evening as we tried to rouse dad from his bed to have some supper, Elihu said to me that ‘you can just feel the sad in this house’. Yes, it’s the reason I haven’t pushed harder to visit them. While I’ve wished for family dinners, and have attended a few, I can say they’ve not become routine for us. It’s a heavy, dark and depressing house to be in. Between Andrew’s alcoholism, mom’s denial and dad’s dementia (not to mention years without a proper housecleaning!) the house is just friggin heavy. Not a pleasant place in which to linger. And with us being so busy, it just makes it easier to pretend the whole situation doesn’t exist. But today, when I get the extremely rare opportunity to look into my dad’s eyes – people, this is big – I realize that I need to be here now. Finally, the defenses are down (well, dad’s at any rate!) and I can begin to share the same space with my father in a real way.

I don’t know how things will turn out. Dad’s gone downhill very quickly the past two weeks even. Nonsensical speech (although I do think there’s something there to be learned if one listens) and an incredibly weakened body make for some big decisions in the immediate future. Mom’s new song is “the next stop will be the emergency room”, but she doesn’t seem to want to take it further. Ok, so ER. Then what, mom? I’ve been trying to get her to find a visiting nurse twice a week for, oh, what, like a year now?? Even two weeks ago she was saying “we’re not there yet”. The emergency room is NOT a haven for super-old folks with old-people problems. Sorry. It’s either nurse at home – or nursing home. And while Elihu himself suggests that the best idea would be to turn dad’s ground floor office into the new bedroom and get a nurse in to help bathe him twice a week – I have a feeling that mom would rather just get him out of the house completely. And ya know what happens then, right? Forgotten by family, far from home, shuttled around under relentless flourescent lights and shoved in front of crappy American TV, confused and finally detached from anything that reminds them of who they are and BAM! There you go. An aging parent who’d rather be dead if only that were a goddam option. !!!

I’d like to keep him at home with someone stopping by to help. But can my mother, at 78, reverse a lifetime habit of controlling her household down to the last cat hair and learn to accept a caregiver into her home?? This is the larger question. Fuck dad’s outcome. Keep the household on mom lockdown at all costs. Sheesh.

So Elihu and I watch and wait from the sidelines. The good thing here is that finally I can express my love for my father without censorship; there is a lot of hand holding now, and deep eye contact that never, ever existed before. And there are some increasingly less tentative loving touches being given on backs, legs and feet…. there are kisses and the gentle smoothing of hair, there are more expressions of love being shared than ever before in our lives. Once upon a time we had all the words we could use, and all the time in the world to use them. Now we have little of either, but it seems that true communication is finally possible. I wonder at the obstacles of the past fifty years that had made this sort of expression so impossible, so embarrassing, so unthinkable. There are just so many cultural rules, and the generations of yesteryear often didn’t cultivate open expressions of love. At least I’m glad to have this chance now, it’s better than never.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the shifts that are taking place. Funny how you just go through life thinking things will always be thus. (I thought I’d be twenty-seven for a hundred more years.) It seems your kids will always need help pouring their milk. It seems you’ll always be able to jump down those last five stairs from the landing. It seems like you’ll always have dark hair. Hell, it seems as if you’ll always have hair! But no, it won’t always be thus, and change, in every single moment, is always upon us. Though the shifts in our own bodies may be far too subtle and slow-moving for us to witness ourselves, from time to time our mortality can’t be avoided. A sudden reflection of one’s face in a window, the choice to take a safer footing, the need for an extra layer around the shoulders… tiny signs arise. The falling leaves and dropping temperatures remind me that we are all constantly on the move through infinitely changing times.

Grandpa and Elihu

My arthritic, middle-aged hand next to his. So many concerts given with his hand, so much talent there.

Dad’s more relaxed now, you can see it on his face. That, plus he loves his only grandchild so very much and can’t stop admiring him.

Post Script: I am very frustrated with my aging computer. In spite of having recently had someone in to clean it up, it is behaving in strange and new ways. In the above post I see many words appearing in red and underlined with crazy embedded hyperlinks. I wish I could remove them, but haven’t a clue as to how they got there. Today I’m wishing I had a computer that wasn’t as old as my fifth grader. !!

Stress Test

September 30, 2013September 30, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Mommy MindLeave a comment

The last few days I’ve been experiencing a dull, ever-present concern in the back of my mind for the things going on in a hospital room in Chicago. I don’t dwell on it, and I continue to live my life, but I keep wondering… Just how bad are things? How much has the situation improved? Has it improved at all? And more than I should, I worry about my ex. Perhaps now he’s finally beginning to consider the inevitable events of the next few years. Both our parents are getting old, and this is relatively new territory for us – or at least more so for him. I’ve been living close to it, thinking about it, planning for it – doing all that for a few years now, yet Fareed and his folks aren’t the type to discuss such plans. So it makes sense that he might be caught a bit off guard. Hell, I suppose no matter how much planning and discussing one does, it probably always throws one off guard to find your mom has fallen, that your dad has had a stroke, that an emergency has finally happened… There can’t ever be a good time for bad news. But at least it should be talked about, and ahead of time if possible. The Conants have done a good job of that at least. Got the DNRs in place, the health care proxies and such… My ex father-in-law’s heart attack and subsequent surgery are a huge alarm bell that the times are changing. My dad’s thing is so slow moving that it doesn’t have the same effect as a catastrophic event. Sure my dad’s not himself, and if I compare him to what he was like just a few months ago, it can break my heart. But at least he’s moderately healthy, moderately ambulatory. He kinda seems the same on the outside. But shit. Honestly he’s not at all the same as he was, and we all know it.

This stuff is just plain awful., no matter what form it takes. It’s just plain sad. It’s that stuff that you kinda think everybody else goes through, but that somehow, just somehow, you – will not. You, being special and different, are going to manage to sidestep this canyon of heartbreak and fear… somehow, your story will be easier, different… Things will wind up tidily. But hey, even if they do, you still have that matter of death at the end of it all. Maybe there will be no regrets, nothing left unsaid, and a full life left at the right time, but still, it’s there. The end. The end of your parent’s life. Why is it that we just don’t talk about this stuff? Or is it just my families? I hope that with my son – and with families coming up these days – that we will be able to discuss our aging processes with complete ease. Maybe that’s being naive or over simplifying it, but still it’s a hell of a lot more likely that my son and I will not have the problem on the topic that generations before have. I certainly pray not.

I heard good news from Elihu that his grandpa is indeed doing better. Still ‘being breathed’, but better. I hope they’ve got him doped up pretty good too, cuz it cannot feel too pleasant having a tube like that down one’s gullet. And it looks like they’re getting his lungs clear of liquid too. All much better news. So the knot in my stomach unties just a bit, but not a whole lot. Because I still have items on the list that aren’t going away anytime soon: I have much new music to learn. Music that I need to be able to play to tempo in just a couple of days for my new accompanying post at my son’s school. I hadn’t thought it would be this much of a challenge, really. How hard could a couple of classical pieces be? Hmm. Schumann with his stupid ‘Des Abends’ in D flat, and Mr. Debussy with his etherically beautiful but pesky ‘Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum’…. it’s not so much the key in this case but the damned tempo that has me concerned… Oh I love my old friend Mr. Bach, and his sons too, and I really have missed using both my brains and my fingers at the same time, but this is a bit much. Lots to bring up to speed while life continues on without pause. A Halloween costume is underway, I must ship a desk to a friend in France, I have a friend’s child coming home with us after school this week to cover a gap in childcare, the chickens await butchering, Elihu and his boat of a bass must get to a lesson tomorrow, and I am down to less than $60 in my checking account. All of it overlapping. Ich. I don’t like the way it feels. I know it won’t always be thus, and that everything that’s happening is on its way to becoming something better, something good and satisfying. Ultimately, things can only get better from this moment on. I think. Maybe not, but hopefully. .. Right?

But what softens the load is the image I see outside of my kitchen window (as I wash dishes for the third friggin time today, sigh). Elihu is dancing through the yellow leaves which cover the ground by the creek, he is jumping over the pond, crossing the small plank bridge, squatting down and reaching, then jumping up, running around to the other side and squatting down once more… He’s on his ‘final tour before torpor’ of the remaining frogs. (Each one he shows me has me a bit concerned; might they not want to hunker down in the mud before it’s too late?) Today he is happy, happy, happy. Finally, NOwhere to be. No errands, no visits, no ‘just next door’s, no visitors, no nothing. Nothing but frogs and chickens, that is. And all to the soundtrack of the aforementioned Debussy and Schumann. Not a bad way to pass a warm, early fall afternoon. I’m happy to have the excuse to play so much music, really, as before this new job I could never – would never – have justified this many hours at the piano when there are so many other necessary things to do, not the least of which is simply to be with my child. But in playing the piano with all of the windows open – as my son runs around the property hither and yon – I am actually with him. He can hear me, and I can see him too. And It’s one of the loveliest ways to pass an afternoon. We’re each doing our thing, each one close to the other. In moments like these, I sometime feel that life can’t get much better- regardless of the stress that’s yet to show up in my week, in my life even.

Elihu would tell you the same. We love being home, doing nothing, and simply being side by side. It makes the rest of it all – commitments, homework, chores, extra life stress – all worthwhile. So let’s all hope that life looks much more peaceful next week this time… Because living in a state of stress has begun to feel like a test of my abilities. And I am not a fan of stress – or tests.

That Old House

September 16, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal...Leave a comment

Feels like I’m banging my head against a wall. Just when will my mother stop making excuses, and when will she stop making this into a bigger deal than it is? Just what will it take for her to get one lousy in-home nurse to come out and do an interview? Make one call, make one appointment. Then sit back and wait for the person to come to her. Seriously, just one phone call. But no. She can’t seem to get this done. There’s got to be more going on here than meets the eye. I suppose it might be hard for me to give way too if I were in her position – after all, I do like my personal power. I like having control over my little world. Yeah, I guess I understand. Seems I’m just a chip off the old block I guess. Man.

Had felt there was some progress being made, but now I’m not so sure. Although my mom’s been adamantly denying her need for outside help with the household and with my dad’s care for the past year, she’s recently begun to acquiesce. And I felt some relief at this; it seemed we would finally make some progress. But it doesn’t seem so from my vantage point in this moment. She seems a bit stuck. Not sure why, exactly. I really don’t know what’s in my mom’s head. She and I might talk for hours about things that need to be done in my home and what project is next on the list, but at the end of it all, we don’t talk about her own future in any real detail, her own plans or expectations for the near future. We talk about wills, yes, and how things will work after she and dad are gone, how Andrew will be provided for and our property divided, but we don’t much discuss that delicate nether world that comes in between now and then. I have no idea what her personal hopes are for her future. I just don’t know what’s going on inside her head. For we have never, ever been a family that talked about such things. It’s probably at the root of the reason my marriage failed; I didn’t address head-on issues that I knew were brewing under the surface. Yeah, the Conants are really really good at acting like things are just fine. Does my mother fear my father dying? Does she fear him moving to a nursing home? Might his death actually give her relief? Does she wish for dad’s own relief? Or would she experience relief if he simply no longer lived in the house with her? Or does the prospect of him moving out frighten her? Does she envision a solo, late-in-life travel chapter? Does she secretly wish she had more freedom from her job as caregiver so that she might do things, go places?

Honestly, I don’t think she thinks any of these things, but I can never be sure. I personally suspect she’s comfortable with things as they are. With her doing everything, with dad at home, with things getting just the smallest bit more challenging as time goes by, in increments that she can still stay on top of. Regardless of my impressions, I won’t leave this conversation unspoken – I certainly intend to ask her about her true feelings, but not right now. Recently, she’s been quite upset with me. She feels I’m on a jag to get her to move faster than a pace at which she’s comfortable. (When I’d move a bit too fast as we tackled the attic recently she’d cry out “I’m not dead yet!” or “You can do that after I’m gone!” The martyr meter was peaking to be sure.) My God. It’s kinda like dealing with a hoarder. Things go at a snail’s pace. Can we please get moving here? She understands this is a conversation started a few years ago, but only now is she beginning to even accept that she needs to do something about it. I’m trying to get her to make an action plan. To consider the landscape of the next few years. Look, I know it’s not as easy as I make it out to be. These are the final years of her life we’re talking about here, and although not a one of us will ever say as much, we all know it. Can’t be easy hearing a conversation that involves the end of your partner’s life – and ultimately, the end of yours, too.

I will give her props for tackling the attic a little while back. She went ahead and had a roll-off container delivered, and even paid for a few extra days as we sat on stools and waded thru stuff that had remained in storage above the garage for the past 25 years since they moved here from Chicago. It was a good ninety degrees in that attic, and a good ninety percent of the stuff there was covered in cat pee which had been reduced through heat and time to a sticky amber goo…. I tried not to find fault with her housekeeping – or rather her keeping of five cats – but the pee was so prevalent and so vile that I found myself getting slightly angered as I worked. I had to tell myself it was no one’s fault, this languishing, forgotten, smelly mess… I reminded myself that life gets busy, things out of sight become out of mind, and cats, well, they pee on stuff that’s outdoors and covered in dust. How can the cats possibly tell that these are decades-old family treasures? Hell – how can we even tell? I talked myself out of a bad mood more than a handful of times, and found that the heat and stink were worth it when we’d unearth something with a story or a memory. I knew it was good for mom to do this herself, to see these things again. No one would ever dare say such a thing out loud, but it was a form of closure. This was a process that was enabling mom to go forward from here with some renewed energy. I know personally a good bit about taking stock, assessing the inventory of a house and how invigorating it is to know just what you have and where it all is. It is empowering. I kept this forward in my mind as I toiled in the heat, in order to be as present as I could for mom; to witness her things, her life, her keepsakes, her stories and rememberings. This was important stuff. I know I was a bit crabby, and I hope I didn’t ruin the whole experience with my mood. And at least I took pictures. So we’ve still got those. Plus some nice little mementos. That should help.

It was my most recent visit to the house that pushed me over the edge. As I sat idle for a few moments while waiting for dad to sit up on the side of the bed so he could stand, then finally let me assist him in getting on his robe (which he asked me about three consecutive times each less than a minute apart. Talk about short-term memory loss!), I began to look around. There was a layer of dust and cat hair covering every single surface within my gaze. Truly, every last item and inch of space was coated in grime and grit. It’s no wonder my kid needs two benadryl just to make a thirty minute visit! Just like I had in the attic, I began to get angry. Why the hell couldn’t my mom just ‘break down’ and call someone to help her clean? But more importantly – how was is she didn’t even notice it? I do understand how it’s hard to be objective about things you’re around every day, but come on. At the very fucking least think of your grandson! Wouldn’t you like him to be able to visit for more than fifteen minutes – and without having to leave in an asthmatic episode every time? My mother seems to have all of her wits and discretionary powers fully on board – except when it comes to the filth in which she and dad now live. And I don’t get it… or do I? Maybe her pride won’t let her fully accept that things are finally beyond her ability to fix. Yeah, I guess that’s got to be a crappy and powerless way to feel. If she even realizes she’s feeling it. Her generation winces at such self-inventory. Part of the problem as well, I think….

It began to strike me as selfish that she should realize this and yet do nothing. I thought of her ‘to do’ pile on the desk downstairs; the desk she tells me she hasn’t managed to sit down at all week, but which is overrun with things she must get to. Her ‘urgent’ business? To wade through the dozens of appeals for money from native american groups, animal shelters and campaigns to fix cleft palates for children in far-away countries…. Thank-you gifts from past donations litter the office; silly miniature dream-catchers, cat magnets, calendars and more useless stuff that stays where it is because of course to simply throw it all out would be wasteful. ! It’s all crap that nobody has room for, let alone a person with almost eighty (sorry, seventy-eight) years of accumulation on her hands already. A foot-high stack of envelopes sits waiting for her attention, and she feels its pull. Yet somehow, arranging for a nurse come out and help out with dad for two hours a week doesn’t compete with the pile. Nor does calling a cleaning service. And while I’m capable of doing such things for her, she gets angry and frustrated should I bring it up. My hands are tied from helping. And if I begin to think about it much, I too get very upset.

Thankfully, with my son’s allergies, I don’t have to actually face this dilemma in person too often. Sadly, Elihu and I have long since given up the idea of coming over for regular, weekly dinners. Too much cat dander to battle with. And with school, homework, music lessons and life in general – all that plus dad’s late waking in the day (he’s usually just getting up as we’re having supper) it doesn’t always work out too well. Today, after Elihu’s first bass lesson we did pop over for a visit. Elihu sang to dad, and told him about the lesson, and the two banged out some fun rhythms on the counter together, but with little to say, homework yet to do and the allergies mounting, we were gone inside of fifteen minutes. I think back to just a year ago, when it might still have been possible for dad to get out for a visit. I think two years back, when he himself walked over to our house to say hello. And now he’s hard-pressed to get from the island to the couch. His spirit is recognizeable, and even more so when mom’s not around – but any real-world level of functioning I can now sadly recognize is gone. I feel the pall of regrets sneaking in on me, and I have to remind myself that I’ve always done what I could. Perhaps I could have done more, been a better daughter, lobbied harder to get him in the car and out into the world, but my own life has been full these past few years. So I try not to go there. Rather, I try to give dad our love and good cheer when we visit, and Elihu and I are both sensitive to our role as carriers of delight and entertainment. We haven’t much to share, but a new song or story from our week seems to lift dad’s spirits. Beyond that, I don’t think there’s much we can do. I think we’re doing the best we can, and it’s done with love. But still, it’s just so sad.

I remember when my parents built their new home. A post and beam, passive solar beauty of a house with hand-cut pegs joining massive, exposed timbers. They had a lofted living room long before two story great rooms were the rage. Filled with harpsichords, art, oriental rugs, plants, cats and guests, it was always a comfortable, earthy home to visit. There were post-concert parties in the summer, wood-stove warmed holidays in the winter. The front door has never once been used by a single guest, save a confused visitor or a Jehovah’s witness. Everyone had always come in through the garage and into the kitchen. For years it’s been a house well-lived in, but these days not so much. Thankfully the tv is on much of the time and does its job of keeping the airspace filled with an energy of some sort which downplays the emptiness. Without it the house rings with silence. Not even the Bob and Ray CDs or the recent harpsichord recordings of a colleague are listened to anymore. The technology of a boom box is beyond my father now, and when my mother comes home the tv becomes the soundtrack to the busyness of the kitchen. But it’s what works for them, and that’s what matters now. God bless Turner classics. Those old movies keep them comfortable. The movies remind them of a time in their lives in which they ceased to grow older. And who could blame them for insulating themselves like this against the coming changes? I can’t blame them for staying with what’s comfortable, and I can’t begrudge them for not trying to keep up with the rest of us.

I also can’t help but indulge in a moment of poignant reminiscing whenever I visit. I still think of this place as mom and dad’s new, post-retirement home… the place where they were to start their new life after Chicago… and in my heart it almost seems like only a couple of years ago. It’s hard to understand that this place isn’t mom and dad’s new house anymore. It’s hard to imagine all the life that’s transpired since then. And it’s hard to understand that my parents – as well as their beautiful home – are finally getting old.

The Other Shoe

August 8, 2013August 8, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Pics4 Comments

Thursday morning

We’re going to take dad to the hospital today as he’s been complaining of stomach pains for a few days now. While mom and I think it might be good old-fashioned constipation, and he’s been drinking more fluids to help things along, the pain hasn’t really gone away. Mom suspects all he needs is some hydration by way of an IV. That, and the overall stimulation that another atmosphere and new people might provide. I’m not so sure this will have a happy ending. Martha, the other matriarchal figure in our lives, is also in the hospital today. She awoke around four this morning because she was having difficulty breathing. Martha knows the drill well. She pushes the button on the pendant around her neck, calls her friends Doreen and Mike, and shortly an ambulance arrives. She’s been in the hospital – admitted through ER – many times over the past couple of years. Sometimes things appear dire, yet she always ends up returning to her large, historic farmhouse in Greenfield. And every time she enters the place, I pray she makes it home again. Above all things, Martha is a woman who must die in her house. And no matter how infirmed her state, it seems she always has the resolve to make sure that one day she will.

My father, on the other hand, might have a different story. If admitted, he might be considerably disoriented by an extended stay in the hospital. Mom’s hope is that he ends up staying for a few days. She’s even posited his going then to a rehab facility in town (Martha’s done that herself several times). But if he can be made well by a simple round of hydration, then why would he need to stay there? My suspicion is that mom isn’t even aware of her own secret wish to be relived of her care-taking duties, if only for a couple of days. I’ve been lobbying hard for a weekly visit from an private nurse, but mom continues to say ‘we’re not there yet’. ! A few days ago she began to acquiesce, and told me her intention was to call the office of the aging and schedule an in-home interview, yet every manner of obstacle has prevented her from doing so. She doesn’t work, dad doesn’t get up til way past noon. What on earth could be preventing her from calling, save her own, deeply-embedded fear of entering this next phase? This is all a sad new territory for sure, and it’s made even harder to navigate by virtue of my parents’ values and upbringing. They are not a generation that discusses their feelings. And my mother is definitely not one to accept help. This creates a challenging environment when it comes time to deal with these issues of aging. Man, if there’s one thing I’ve made good and clear to my own son, it’s that he should do what he needs to do when the time comes. If I don’t know who he is and I can’t wipe my own butt – then by all means ship me off. And honestly – you may think me morbid, I do not care – I am all in favor of assisted suicide (however loathe that term) if a person should face an irreversible, debilitating disease. It’s even my hope to be able to sock away enough money to have that be a viable option one day (one possible place is in Zurich, Switzerland. It’s legal there). After all, looking to my father and paternal grandmother, the genetic possibility for growing old with dementia is a potential reality for me. I cannot pretend it isn’t.

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Thursday, early evening

I’ve been at the hospital for much of the afternoon with mom and dad. The staff at Saratoga Hospital continues to impress me, and I’m so very grateful for their service today. Turns out dad just had a hernia. Not a big surprise, he had one on the other side years ago which he had fixed surgically. The doc massaged it back into place, and dad felt relief right away. He had a CT scan which showed some ‘white matter’ around his brain; the ER doc surmised that it may have been many ‘tiny strokes’, but mom and I wonder if it might not simply be evidence of his memory loss and the related diminishing brain volume. Either way, my feeling is that it doesn’t so much matter. In my eyes, it’s my father’s quality of life and comfort that is most important now. Little prevention can be done to stop the progress of what’s probably inevitable. Guarding against falls is another concern of mine now too (mom and dad have a tile floor, argh. Knock on wood). In the end, dad’s cheerful, as well as he can be, and most importantly, feeling better. And I for one am relieved that he didn’t need an overnight stay in the hospital. (Although mom might feel differently.)

Martha was just down the hall, and on the way out, we wheeled dad into her room for a visit. It only just occurred to me right now – that it might have been the last time that dad and Martha will ever see each other in person. On Martha’s 87th birthday, just a few weeks ago, it took dad nearly fifteen minutes just to get inside her house. It was a huge production. I think we all knew as we watched his incredibly slow progress to the car afterward, that this was probably his final visit to the farm. This whole chapter is bizarre and bittersweet. I realize I’m lucky to have both of my parents alive and doing relatively well. So many of my friends are in that stage of life when they’re losing theirs. I watch, I wait, I worry. Nothing to do but try to savor the time remaining. It’s tough for me, yes, but I think of my folks. My dad is actually blessed by his dementia; he can’t truly appreciate that his life is reaching its end. And my mother, while she herself is actually doing ok (in spite of bad arthritis and chronic back pain), I can’t help but I wonder if there’s not a low-grade worry present in her thoughts about how her own end will come. An occasional passive-aggressive aside will come out every now and then which betrays a darker side to her concerns. On the face of it however, she jokes, she makes light… There is a mildly haunting sense to this time in all of our lives, although none of us ever says as much. But even if we were to talk, what would we say? I’d like to think that Elihu and I will face these tough conversations with absolute honesty when the time comes, but I can’t know that for certain. I cannot begin to assume that I will behave any differently, or approach the last years of my life with any more candor than my folks. I just don’t know how it will feel to be in that situation. I’d like to think that I’ll be able to face it, but it’s been a bigger challenge than I’d thought just turning fifty!

For now, I cherish the little things that have been so familiar to me all of my life. That certain, charming way my father has of laughing. The way my mother always shows concern, the way she always takes care of things, and makes me feel in the end like everything will always be alright. I can’t grasp in this moment, today, that one day they will be gone. And as frustrated as they can make me, they are my only parents, and I love them so. Every remaining moment is important, because you never truly know when the other shoe will finally fall to the ground.

I am a fan of Saratoga Hospital. The staff there have all been so kind and gracious.

Dad was in good spirits all afternoon.

There’s his gallbladder. All looks just fine.

Now we’re in Martha’s room for a visit. Note how she raises her hand for emphasis as she speaks. She is still in control! And she remembers the name of every last person who comes into her room – not only that, but she remembers where they live! Martha always inquires where people are from. That’s signature Martha Carver. !

That profile I know so well.

You can see what a production it is to move dad.

Aaron was so kind and patient.

Mom needs a cane these days – she can’t walk far without it. Even so, she’s the rock in the duo so far.

So fragile looking.

What a relief. I asked mom if she needed help on the other end – getting him back inside the house – but she insisted she didn’t; she said it simply took a long time. I can’t help but wonder each time he leaves the house if this will be the last time he does. You just can’t ever know for sure.

Ponderous Planet

July 25, 2013July 27, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal...2 Comments

Life on planet Earth is certainly not for wimps. And while I may know only the mildest of challenges when seen in the larger scope of this immense world, the tiny events in my own life keep me ever-engaged in an unending process of disbelief, resistance, learning and acceptance. I try not to give my power over to these challenges of mine, but oh it’s tempting. Arthritis sneaks into my hands and begins to cause discomfort, an injury from some thirty years ago blossoms into a full-on nerve problem, low-grade poverty still makes it hard to sleep some nights, and of course, there are the familial concerns. The last Facebook flare-up of my ex and related responses has finally died down just in time for life to present some fresh, new dramas. Like my brother, who when faced with a family intervention for his alcoholism, bled the water line in my house dry, puzzling helpful neighbors and costing my mother several hundred dollars in plumber’s fees. Then there’s my father, who has in this past week decidedly turned a corner. Although he speaks in well-constructed sentences (and highly entertaining ones at that – his use of language still beckons an audience to listen) there is simply no point to his speech. He speaks in a conversational cul de sac, leaving even me feeling confounded and at a loss as to how to respond. Then there’s my mom, whose mobility is so much worse this year than last, and whose work load does nothing but increase – in spite of her having recently retired. And there’s Martha. The other matriarchal figure of the extended family who requires my brother’s help each day to assist with the most basic of tasks. She is not happy about this intervention of my brother’s. After all, if he goes to the hospital (which is highly unlikely at this time), who will tend to her?

This is a good month for my son to be gone. I’m not sure how it all would have played out if he’d been here. I even locked my doors last night for the very first time in my five years here – on account of my brother, and how enraged he became at our suggestion he admit himself for detox. Gotta give him props for his method of retaliation. He simply opened up both hoses and bled out the water line. Pump lost its prime, and without some serious manual intervention of said pump, no water was coming into the house any time soon. Good one, Andrew. It mighta made me laugh if it weren’t for the fact that it inconvenienced two neighbors and ended up costing our mother. Clever though, very creative. Better than a busted window I guess. (Yes, I did move the sledgehammer to a more covert location.) Now the clock starts. In a week’s time, if he still chooses not to be admitted to the hospital, mom will no longer let him use the car. Sure, she’ll ask him for the keys. That won’t do it, of course. So we’ve got our own means of enforcement, which I won’t go into here. Suffice to say the car won’t be starting for him.

Meanwhile, my house and garage are being painted. Which is fine – it’s great, actually (God bless my mom, once again she comes to the rescue) – but the folks doing the job must dodge a cranky goose and fresh chicken poop as they work. They’re a nice bunch, and really, they’re kinda like family. The dad of Elihu’s pal Keithie is running the show. But there’s a decidedly ‘Bad News Bears’ feel to the outfit; cigarette butts lay all over the driveway, and work in general seems a bit stop-and-go. But in the end there’s more ‘go’ than ‘stop’, so it’s all good.

Yeah, I don’t have it bad by any stretch of the imagination. But each day has its hiccups. And I know that for all of our sunny and polite on-the-street greetings, each one of us is a damn lier more than half the time when we answer ‘good’ when asked how we are doing. Are we really doing ‘good‘? Are things all just going swimmingly at home? Ok, so maybe they are for the most part, but there’s always that other part. We humans are so adept at keeping up fronts. I suppose we can’t all just go into it everytime someone asks us how we are, but a part of me wishes we as a culture were a bit less undauntingly cheery about things. Not that I think we should all carry our burdens forefront in our thoughts, but rather that we should all aknowledge that while things might be going well for the most part, not everything is exactly easy. We are all such troopers here on this planet. So much to do, so much to learn, such challenges yet before us. And some days, just too much to ponder.

The Hillhouse

The Journey of a Mother and Son

Tag: dementia