family

Debris

September 10, 2017 Sally9 Comments

I’ve been watching The Weather Channel the past two days with almost a morbid obsession. This waiting and watching and watching — it’s like a slow motion train wreck and I can’t get my loved ones off the tracks.

“Even if we did leave,” my sister said yesterday, “where would we go? The traffic is moving slowly and there’s no guarantee we would find gas along the way.”

Yes, life is one big crap shoot. You roll the dice, you move your mice, and — sometimes it’s the wrong decision, but you have to ride it out. Sometimes, it’s hard to know what the right decision is.

The other day I accidentally pulled out in front of a car at one of our wonky rural intersections (the Bowerstown bridge, for local readers). The other driver let me know — with a toot and a gesture — that he was not happy. I had already committed, though, and had to go for it once I entered the intersection. We all made it through unscathed.

I hope that’s the case for my sister.

Another story I’ve been following — through the friend of a friend of a friend — is of vacationers stuck on St. Maarten. First, gangs were invading the resort to loot it. The Americans hunkered down in the back corner of the back room of their condo. After escaping the gangs, Hurricane Jose set its course for them. “…their greatest concern is the amount of water that will be coming this time as there are no walls/windows to keep it out. They currently have some drinking water and some peanut butter to eat…” The word yesterday was that they had been rescued.

However, before the rescue, in their preparation for Jose, these people were told to collect loose debris left by Irma so it wouldn’t be flying around when the second hurricane hit. Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought of that.

I am mesmerized at the swirling red-purple-yellow-green nebulae of winds and rains on The Weather Channel — and I picture The Wizard of Oz on a much larger magnitude. With rain. Lots of rain. And now flying debris.

Someone posted on Facebook decrying people who make a metaphor of this hurricane. I don’t believe it belittles to take lessons from a disaster. Pascal (in Pensées) said,

Two errors:
1. To take everything literally.
2. To take everything spiritually.

It is a literal storm — on a magnitude that I have never seen.

But I also can learn a lot from those swirling winds.

When I feel battered on all sides — and I’ve had that kind of week: a death in the family, personal medical concerns, frustrations in relationships, a sister in the crosshairs of a hurricane, bickering, aching back — battered by both boulders and pebbles — when I feel battered, I can use the lulls to pick up the debris, and I can hunker down in the toughest part of the storms.

So, I turn my attention back to The Weather Channel, hoping to see some news of where my sister is.

“We don’t care about our weather,” Laurel scolded the television, as our local forecast came on.

No, we care about that freight train, Irma, slowly barreling toward Bonita Springs, Florida.

family

Irma

September 9, 2017 Sally3 Comments

It seems hard to believe that this beach where I have walked and relaxed and played will have a storm surge of 5, 10, 14, 17 feet of water. The numbers keep getting higher every time I look at the news.

My sister, who lives in Bonita Springs, Florida, has long been an avid Weather Channel watcher. She says that her cats like to watch, too.

I always laugh about it. “You can’t change the weather,” I say, which is true, but unhelpful.

But now Irma plans to visit.

I’ve collected shells on Sanibel, and felt the waves wash over my feet. Little waves of the incoming tide. Not Irma.

My children have gathered buckets of sand and water as they played there. All in safety.

It’s hard to imagine how changed it will be.

“Is it too late to evacuate?” I asked my sister this morning.

“Oh yeah,” she replied.

As Irma’s winds grow closer, a crescendo unlike anything my Florida family has experienced, my worries will also grow.

And grow.

I had my own little bout with worry recently. Waiting for appointments and answers is the worst. But, in the end, my answers were all good news.

With Irma, I’m afraid that the waiting isn’t the worst part.

It’s too much to hope for good news.

I’ll watch the Weather Channel with a pit in my stomach, waiting for the storm to pass.

My prayers are with all who stay in Florida.

Psalm 55:8

Rain

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 Sally5 Comments

I’m beginning to anticipate
What his response might be —
My mother blamed “the others”
For things we didn’t see,
But my father’s not a blamer
So, when he can’t explain
“It fell down from the sky,” he says,
Like some mysterious rain.

I crawled around the other day
With flashlight in my hand.
Half his hearing aid was missing
And I tried to understand
How these darn things fall apart so much
Half in one room, half another
I would have blamed “the others”
Had I been my mother.

Then Laurel called me from the kitchen
“Wha-T?” I said, but I
Emphasized the “T” too much —
And I can tell you why —
I was getting irritated
At the time that it had cost
Looking for a hearing aid
Half of which was lost.

“Grampa wants you,” she said timidly
And so I went to see
What it was he wanted now
From irritated me
“I found it!” he was saying.
I was surprised at what I saw
The missing piece of hearing aid
Resting in his paw.

“Where’d you find it?” I demanded.
I knew I should happy
But, you know, I wanted answers
And he’d better make them snappy.
“Can you fix it?” he was asking —
Not answering my question
It’s a skill he has in conversation –
Changing the direction

But I was dogged — “Where’d you find it?”
“It fell out of the sky,”
He said, as if that answer
Would satisfy my cry.
He told me again yesterday
When I asked about a pin
He had fastened to his sweatshirt
And I asked where it had been —

Apparently the sky inside
Varies precipitation.
Outside I see it raining rain
Inside, to my frustration,
It yields an odd assortment
Of hearing aids and stuff
That I couldn’t have imagined.
I should be thankful; it’s enough —

The lost hearing aid was found
I’m not still crawling on the ground

For Peter:

Perhaps another explanation is that a wolverine
Creeps into the house at night, stealthily, unseen
And hides my father’s hearing aids
Tapes them to the ceiling
Whence they fall on Dad, while I am searching, kneeling.

family · photography · poetry

Blonde

August 29, 2017 Sally11 Comments

My hair was blonde when I was small
But it grew dark as I grew tall
My mother had the same thing too —
Blonde that darkened as she grew

’tis a funny thing — this natural blonde —
Some maintain, and don’t respond
To aging with six shades of brown
But old age gives its hoary crown

To all in silvery grayish white
Tresses giving up the fight
To stay the hue of summer sun
And let winter overrun

Vanity, you try my hair
But you won’t win ’cause I don’t care

In response to Daily Prompt: Rhyme

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Alphabet with a Twist – B

elderly · family

At the Corner

August 25, 2017August 25, 2017 Sally14 Comments

At the corner of Grove and Spring Streets, I paused. Maggie dropped her fish and panted while I stepped back to survey the building from a different angle.

It’s a lovely setting surrounded by trees. Porches and patios invite the residents to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Quiet and serene, the building stands removed just far enough from the hubbub of busy our tourist town. Expanses of lawn buffer it even more.

When I’m inside, I’m all yes.

When I leave, I wonder.

Maggie picked up her fish and we continued walking past the building.

I looked at the porch with its flower box. To the left was the dining room. I had eaten there a couple of weeks ago with my father. We were just visiting, but I was impressed. Tables for six or eight, set with white linen table cloths and real china. Real food, not institutional. Servers who were both pleasant and competent. A little jazz played in the background.

“They take turns choosing what kind of music to play,” the administrator told me. “Also, people sit at the same table for about two months, but then we rearrange the seating plan so cliques don’t form and they all get to know each other.”

Every resident’s room is unique in configuration. Some have window seats. All have walk-in closets, high ceilings, and private bathrooms that include showers with seats and grab-bars. The rooms are spacious and cheerful.

I just never wanted to see my father leave his home.

But this isn’t an institution. It’s almost more like a sanctuary.

“We have lots of activities for the residents,” the administrator said. “We get tickets to the Hall of Fame Classic baseball game and sit in the grandstand so they are shaded from the sun.”

Dad would really enjoy that.

“Next week we’re going on a boat ride on the lake and maybe having a picnic on one of the beaches.”

I would like that.

I reached the end of the block with Maggie and looked back at the building.

From this corner, it still looked lovely.

I guess it’s time to finish the application for him.

dementia · elderly · family

Barefoot Girl

August 19, 2017 Sally2 Comments

“Oh, I see you’re a barefoot girl this morning,” my father said, looking at my feet.

I was indeed barefoot, as is often the case when I’m still in my pajamas.

“A barefoot girl with shoes on,” he continued, smiling as he said it.

My daughters are often barefoot in the summer — and he says the same thing to them.

“What’s he talking about?” one of them asked once.

“It’s a poem he memorized,” I told them.

I asked him about it — and he dutifully recited two verses:

‘Twas midnight on the ocean,
Not a streetcar was in sight,
The sun was shining brightly
For it had rained all night.

‘Twas a summer’s day in winter
The rain was snowing fast,
As a barefoot girl with shoes on,
Stood sitting on the grass.

More verses are available on the internet, all unattributed, but those are the two he remembers.

Poetry and music get stored in a different part of the brain, I think — one that survives longer unscathed by dementia. It’s fascinating to think about.

Yesterday, he said something about Laurel going to the skating rink when I was taking her to the pool. He pulls up the wrong word often.

I also had a tough time convincing him that R2D2 wasn’t a radar unit. He was working on a crossword puzzle. R2D2 was the clue and he needed a 5-letter word beginning with R.

“R2D2 is a robot, Dad,” I told him.

“Why doesn’t radar work?” he asked, in all seriousness.

“Because it’s a robot. Robot will work there,” I said.

He made his if-you-say-so face and went back to the crossword.

Maybe if I made up a poem about it and had him memorize it, he would remember.

elderly · family

Sights and Sounds

August 18, 2017 Sally8 Comments

Yesterday my father told me that he was have vision problems.

“Everything is blurry,” he said, “and I feel like I’m seeing double.”

My heart sank. A stroke — the word ran through my mind, a leering devil of a word that filled me with fear.

He looked fine. He was standing, leaning gently on his walker. His speech was fine. He had walked from the porch to the kitchen with his walker and stood in the doorway talking to me.

“Let me wash your glasses for you,” I said, gently lifting them off his face. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

I carried them to the sink and ran water over the lenses, carefully washing first one lens and then the… oh my goodness — a lens was missing.

“You’re missing a lens, Dad,” I told him, and showed him by poking my finger through the frame. We both laughed because this was a much better explanation for the double vision than some of the alternatives.

I began searching and quickly found it where it had fallen on the floor. It’s not hard to pop back in. I’ve done it many times. Within a few minutes, everything looked normal again.

This morning, when he came out, he said, “I’m having a devil of a time.”

“What’s going on, Dad?” I asked.

“WHAT?! I can’t hear you! I can’t find this hearing aid,” he said, pointing to his right ear.

“I’ll find it for you,” I told him, and went to his bedroom where I usually could locate things like missing hearing aids in pretty short order.

I looked.

And looked.

I knew he was waiting for breakfast so I left the looking and went back to the kitchen.

“I can’t find it, Dad, but I’m sure we will,” I told him.

“What did you say?” he asked.

Later, when the home health aide came, we searched and searched. We stripped the bed, looked under every piece of furniture in his room, the garbage, pockets of clothes in the laundry, everywhere.

“My mother used to say, ‘It’s always the last place you look,'” I told the home health aide.

She laughed. My kids just get annoyed when I say that these days.

Finally, we gave up. “I guess I’ll have to call audiology,” I told her.

“Don’t call yet. It’s got to be here somewhere,” she said.

“I’ll wait until next week,” I said, hoping it would appear magically over the weekend.

We shouted the not-good news to my father while he sat reading the paper with his solitary hearing aid. Then I left to pick up Laurel at the pool.

No sooner was Laurel in the car than my phone rang. I handed it to her, asking to answer and put it on speaker phone.

“Sally?” crackled the voice of the home health aide. “Sally? You’re not going to believe this, but I found it. It was on the floor of the side deck right by that purple chair he sits in. It got rained on, but it still works.”

Hallelujah!

The real mystery is how it got there.

I had walked my father into his bedroom at 10:00 the night before, and I’m 95% sure he had it in his ear then. Some time during the night, it mysteriously made its way outside.

I don’t want to think about it.

family · Life

Hospitality

August 7, 2017 Sally4 Comments

Hospitality is certainly part of Muslim culture… It is a reminder of the importance of hospitality in understanding people and allowing them to know you. In our American culture we don’t place as high of a premium on it, and we kind of expect that we can just tell people what we think, and they’ll just accept it because we told them. We don’t have that element of hospitality anymore that allows us to really get to know people on a heart level.

Jonathan Trousdale, The Bosnia Project

Amy had warned us about Bosnian hospitality before we traveled — but mostly it was in terms of coffee drinking. I thought, That’s not such a problem. I like coffee.

And it was true — we were offered lots of coffee. Served in tiny cups and often with sugar cubes. Made the Turkish way.

It turns out I prefer my large American mug of coffee with half-and-half in it.

But Bosnian hospitality – oh my goodness!

Ajla, our junior hostess, playing the harmonica (aka accordion) for us

The coffee was such a tiny part of their hospitality. On two nights we were welcomed into homes for veritable feasts. The first of those meals I would place in the top ten meals of my life. The food was absolutely amazing, especially the baklava.

Bosnian hospitality also includes music. At that first feast, Ajla started the musical segment off playing the “harmonika” (aka accordion), but then there was singing and dancing that went on late into the night. Such a celebration!

Two nights later we dined at a fudbal (soccer) club and watched a game that included the two men from our group.

After the game and dinner, someone got out an accordion again and the men sang. The best men’s choirs in the world had nothing on this group. It was wonderful.

The second dinner in a home was on our last night in Gradačac. We drove and drove on winding country roads until we came to the house. We dined on a large porch that overlooked a valley. Once again, an accordion came out after dinner. The food was great, the singing fun, and the view spectacular.

If I could do one thing in the Bosnian way, it wouldn’t be making coffee or bread or pie or even baklava — although all those things were amazing — if I could do one thing the Bosnian way, it would be to practice hospitality.

The panorama of the valley is my day two entry for the photography challenge I’m doing. It involves posting nature photos (taken by me) for seven days.

I’m going to tag some of my favorite bloggers to take up the challenge too. If you’re tagged and don’t want to do it, that 110% fine with me. I totally understand.

Maneé Trautz — I’m tagging you for three reasons.

One — because when I was looking for hospitality quotes I found one that said “Be a flamingo in a flock of pigeons.” I’m not entirely sure why that’s a hospitality quote, but it made me think of you and your flamingo series back in February (which I loved).

Two — your last post included a picture of a turtle. My last post included a picture of a turtle! Total kismet. (Plus, turtles amble, and that’s the word of the day.)

Three — You haven’t written much lately, my friend. (nudge, nudge)

dementia · family

Helpful Words

August 2, 2017 Sally18 Comments

A foggy morning (that has nothing to do with the post)

“It happens to all of us, you know,” someone said to me when I was talking about my father’s latest foggy episode.

Yesterday morning, when my father was studying his watch, I asked him what time he had.

“Hmmm,” he said, studying the hands and the numbers, “it looks like it’s two minutes past… past… I think it’s two minutes past Tuesday.”

I texted my sister. “I have the title for the book about Dad and dementia — Two Minutes Past Tuesday.”

Funny — but so not funny. Not even remotely funny the more I think about it.

Later in the day he had essentially forgotten my oldest brother, or, at the very least, key elements of Stewart’s life.

“It happens to all of us,” this person said to me, when I told about the things my father had said. “It’ll happen to you. It’ll happen to me. It happens.”

Such a glib response made me wonder if I talk too much about my father and his struggles. I try not to.

The other day when two of my children had a discussion that devolved into nastiness, I said, “Let’s try this again. First she said this (fill in the blank), and then you responded with this (fill in the blank) — but what could have been a better response?”

We talked through possible responses that could have diffused rather than ignited the situation.

It probably won’t work. The next time, they may get after each other again, but maybe a seed has been planted. A seed with a better fruit.

Last night as I lay in bed thinking about the unhelpful response thrown my way, I wondered what I really was looking for in sharing the story of my Dad’s poor thinking. What would have been a better response?

Nobody can really fix the situation. It is what it is.

But here are a few things that may have sounded better.

My sister’s response — “Oh my.” Two words show that she feels the same dismay that I do.

“I’m sorry.” It can be a pat response, but it can also be very sincere. It shows compassion and sympathy.

“That must be so hard.” Yes, yes, it is. I appreciate when people acknowledge that.

“Is there anything I can do?” Yes, there is. You can visit him. Don’t worry about whether he’ll remember your name or not — because the visit isn’t about you. Don’t worry if there are long periods of silence while he searches for words, or if he loses his train of thought altogether. He loves having people sit with him, talk with him, and listen to the same stories (or story fragments). Don’t feel that it’s a waste of time because he may not remember. For that hour that you’re there, he’s loving it. I’m loving it, too, because he’s being fed mentally by the presence of another person.

“How are you doing?” Some days I’m not doing terribly well with all this. Thanks for asking.

family · photography

Sunset – Sunrise

July 29, 2017 Sally6 Comments

Last night, I picked Mary up at 8:30. She had to work late because of induction weekend. Everywhere in Cooperstown, it’s all hands on deck.

On the way home, I kept saying, “Look at that sunset!” It was red and orange and gorgeous.

She dutifully looked and agreed.

Then I said it again.

Lather-rinse-repeat.

When we pulled in the driveway, I said, “I can’t stand it. I have to take a picture of it.”

“Sunset photograph number four-thousand-six-hundred-and-fifty-three,” Mary said. She knows me well.

I snapped this shot on my phone.

“Dang,” I said. “The colors are never right.”

“You can focus it, you know,” Mary told me.

No, I didn’t know.

She took my phone/camera, pointed it at the sunset, tapped the screen on the sunset itself, and took this picture.

Yes, that was closer to the colors. Still not the same as being there — but definitely closer.

This morning the sunrise was ridiculous. I couldn’t stop looking at it.

“I can’t stand it,” I said to myself. “I have to take a picture.”

In my head I heard, Sunrise photo number five-thousand-four-hundred-and-sixty-two. Someone somewhere was laughing at me.

First shot:

Not terribly exciting.

I tried the Mary-technique and tapped the screen, focusing on the colors of the sunrise.

So much better.

Thank you, Mary.

Sometimes it’s possible to teach an old person a new trick.