Let’s try a couple things here...

1. Listen and discuss instead of argue and insult
2. Assume others are basically decent, relatively intelligent and compassionate
3. Remember that everyone has a family that matters to them
4. Accept that others can have a different view of things than you
5. Respect that people have reasons for their opinions that are valid and important to them
6. Understand that faith and moral beliefs are deeply personal choices
7. Appreciate that courage does not mean you are not afraid
8. Know that everyone has felt pain sometime in their life
9. Believe that an open hand is more powerful than a closed fist
10. Realize that Everyone has value

...and see what happens

At 52

I am not as the new buds of Spring
Tender and innocently yearning for the sun

I am not the hearty leaves of Summer
Thriving and unafraid against the elements

I am not yet the withered fallen leaves of winter
Staring backward upon the bare branch memories of my life

I am the early leaves of Autumn
Just revealing the colors of my final vibrant bursting

m.scott

The New Math

I knew that this day would come, all the literature talks about it. It is just part of the progression of the disease.

Part of the progression of the disease. It sounds so clear cut. So understandable. So orderly.
This happens, and then this happens and then this happens. Like a formula.

Except formula's lead to results, to answers. There are no calculations in the math I know how to do, where the expected answer is chaos, is forgetting, is not recognizing your son when he arrives unexpectedly.

No, she wasn't expecting me, and had been sleeping in a chair in the hallway, and had just been woken up to skoot down the hall for the daily round of "activities". I am glad that she is adapting to her new home, she's not happy there, but she's not unhappy either. She is looked after and cared for and watched and that is the best we can do for her.

But when she saw me, unexpectedly, amongst the hustling people that were getting her down the hall, she just stared at me, confused. Maybe she did know who I was, maybe she was just still half in a dream, maybe I am making too much of this.

Maybe I just don't understand this new math.

Packing the Elephants

My Mom likes elephants. She always has, so, over the years, we kids have all given her elephants to add to her collection. Every Christmas, and each of her birthdays, one of us kids would manage to slip in an elephant of some kind.  She displayed them all, the hand made elephant coffee mug, the row of tiny green ones trailing each other across a bookshelf, a big one carved from exotic wood on the floor, a three dimensional tin one hanging on the wall and a small ceramic one with a big smile who sat happily on a little swing just above the sink.

Now Mom, being the woman that she was, would never had let on that perhaps, her love of elephants didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted to be given an elephant at every gift giving opportunity, nor did that love of pachyderms mean that she wanted her house to be turned into a shrine for the things…no, Mom, being the woman she was, loved the gifts and proudly displayed them all, and we were never told whether, in fact, she really loved them THAT much.

It was more important to her to show off the gifts that her children were thoughtful (or unimaginative) enough to continually give her. That was Mom. She was always the one thinking about what would make all of us happy and feel special, even at her own expense.

It wasn’t just elephants though. She had inherited a commemorative spoon collection from her mother-in-law, and over the years each of us would dutifully buy a spoon wherever we travelled. My brother, while he was in the Navy, definitely won the prize for bring back spoons from the most exotic places, but my sister and I did our share to add to the collection. I even found one in Florida that had elephants on it…what a score! These too, my Mom carefully displayed in wall racks.

I found out though, that perhaps she didn’t quite have the love for spoons that she had for elephants when, after I returned from a trip to Chicago, with new spoon in hand my Mom said, gently, ‘Thank you, but I’m not sure that I have space for any more spoons.” I may be limited as far as my gift-giving prowess, but I can recognize a hint.

No more spoons.

That was also about the time that we all started noticing that Mom was no longer quite as interested in a lot of things that she used to love. It was subtle at first, little things like the types of books she was reading, shifting from dense English History tomes to lighter mysteries, albeit the Brother Cadfel mysteries were set in middle ages Britain…but the change was there.

Other things changed as well. She stopped doing needlepoint, and her quilting passion diminished from sewing beautiful, intricately patterned bed-sized quilts to sewing together the occasional small decorative wall hanging to display as part of her themed bathroom. She stopped watching movies or staying up late to watch Letterman. Crosssticks puzzles were left half finished…things were changing.

These changes continued until they demonstrated an undeniable pattern that lead to a series of difficult and sad transitions…and painful choices for my sister and I. Mom could no longer drive. Mom could no longer live alone. Mom needed care givers. Mom needed to move into assisted living.

The other weekend, we moved Mom to a more dedicated care facility and had to once more pack her things away as the new facility had far less space. There was precious little space for more than a bed, a side table and a TV cabinet that now was heavily laden with family photos in a vain hope that they would somehow seem ‘homey’ and familiar.

But no more room for elephants.

So, in the process of packing her remaining possessions, I filled a box with a collection of carefully wrapped elephants…including a set of tiny green ones trailing each other, a 3-D tin one that hung on the wall and a smiling one who happily sat on a swing. The box went into the garage and will eventually go into storage where someday, some future relative, possibly who will never have met my Mom, will open the box marked “Mom’s Elephants” and will unwrap each of the carefully wrapped elephants and wonder why such care was taken for a collection of such worthless little things.

What is love?

Don’t worry, I don’t really have an answer to that.

I can’t tell anyone what love is, only that it is something that you know exists only when you have truly felt it for yourself. Love is many things of course. It is a fire that rages and burns you with fierce desire, but it is also the quiet of that gentle glance across a shadowed room. It is hands holding while tears stream and the ache that comes in the wee hours when a byzantine argument seems that it will have no end…and all you want is to fall into the person’s arms instead of screaming.

Love is fast moments of overwhelming passion and years of warm routine, it is sharing the world through each other’s eyes and being mystified by how someone cannot see what you see.

It is contradiction and consolation and condolence and a deep sharing of strength when it is most needed. It is being alone and forever together. It is respect and caring and anger and forgiveness. It is touching and kissing and longing for a touch that is withheld.

No, I can’t tell anyone what love is, only that I have found it myself and it still is amazing to me, and still so baffling. It is wanting to understand and being content with the journey of discovery…a journey that will last forever.

I can’t tell you what love is, because if you have found it yourself, then you already know.

One Dim Lamp

Imagine that you are sitting in a room, alone. There is a chair, a table and a small lamp with a weak bulb. The room is small and the walls are made of frosted glass that lets in the light, but no clear images, save for a few clear panels spaced randomly. These clear windows are small and allow you to only see a tiny clear image of someone perhaps walking past outside…but quickly the image disappears before you have a chance to focus on it. 

The room is not soundproof, but the walls are thick enough that they muffle the outside noise, so that unless someone stands close to the wall and shouts, you are not able to hear anything distinctly.

When you first enter the room, you can see well because there is a lot of light coming from the outside shining in. The light makes you feel less lonely, especially when you can see the outlines of people walking past outside, and you are able to recognize the faces that pass the clear windows.

But, as time goes on, the light from outside fades, and is replaced by the weak lamp in the room with you.  Because of the light in the room, it becomes harder to see the shapes of people passing by outside, and the faces in the clear panes of glass become less noticeable, and pass by less and less frequently. Also, for some reason, fewer people speak loudly outside the walls, so that you hear less and less distinct sounds, just muffled echoes.

Soon, the light from outside fades almost completely and you are left sitting alone in a small pool of light, with only an occasional echo or shadow coming to you out of the growing darkness. Once in a great while, a face will hover at the window long enough for you to notice, but often the shadows make it hard to recognize who the face belongs to, and even if you call out, the face disappears before you can get an answer.

The darkness becomes deeper, until all that seems to remain is your chair, the table and the lamp sitting in a pool of weak light. You are scared, and lonely and uncertain, and distrusting of the darkness because you have forgotten that there were once walls that you could see out of.

Now, if sounds come to you, they are frightening because they have no meaning, no attachment to anything real. If a face suddenly swims in from the darkness it is startling and distorted by the odd shadows cast off by the dim lamplight, making the face seem only vaguely familiar…like a face from a dream that you once remember having.

This is how I imagine Alzheimer’s must feel.

That is not my Mother

My mother laughs easily and doesn’t look out at the world through suspicious, haunted eyes. My mother tells stories about all the relatives that I will never know, but come alive in her words. My mother played games with me, and didn’t let me win just because I was too young to lose.

That is not my mother.

My mother knows what day of the week it is and remembers the last time I came to see her. My mother remembers the stories of all the stupid art projects that my brother and sister and I brought home from school through the years. My mother saved 3^rd grade report cards and handmade mother’s day presents slopped together by 5 year-olds-pudgy fingers. My mother never forgets birthdays.

That is not my mother.

My mother read books, so many books. She could tell you every one of the Plantagenets and then explain how they interwove themselves through English History. My mother could explain the relationship between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth and all the intrigue that surrounded them. My mother could have written books.

That is not my mother.

My mother loved musicals because in college she loved working behind the scenes. My mother would iron and do housecleaning with the stereo blasting Camelot, The Music Man, South Pacific and My Fair Lady. “Each evening from December to December…” my mother knew all the words.

That is not my mother.

But, it is the woman she has become. She fades away a little more each day, my mother that I knew is disappearing. I love that woman with all my soul, but…

That is not my mother.