Tag Archives: Life

As time goes by

Posted in March by

I’ve been remiss in writing for the past month. The reasons being unexpected work (which is good) and a monetary self-consciousness (which is bad) about what I’ve been blogging and posting these last eighteen months or so.

I’d been blogging more or less as I’ve kept my journal for decades now; un-self conscious and un-varnished, pretty much the truth of my experience (as I see it, of course), without thought (not much anyway) of tone, ramifications or implications.

Funny how with a little time and distance you can look at something and suddenly see it in a completely different light (kinda like putting on that swim-suit that you got on sale in the off season and now that it’ll soon be summer you put it for the first time and wonder-what was I thinking?).

I made the mistake of re-reading some of my old posts and felt suddenly naked and very exposed (except for that swim-suit of course;) Well, I won’t be doing that again (reading that is-not writing). I’m not going to start editing myself or over thinking what I write-I mean, what would be the point if I did that? No, I’ll just continue to move forward in print and leave the looking back to others.

Since my last post I’ve taken Miss Cathy to her neurologist and to her primary care physician for her regularly scheduled check-ups. They both gave her glowing reports. She did better on the neurologists’ memory and cognitive skill’s tests than she’s ever done before and other than gaining a little weight, her health is better than ever, too.

Dr Aleymayehu, her neurologist explained (once again when she asked about her medication) that the Aricept she’s taking is not a “cure” but it “delays” the Alzheimer’s patient from progressing in the disease. Since she was diagnosed so early moms’ pretty much frozen in time with most of her wits about her so Miss Cathy is one of the lucky ones.

Sure, she still has some confusion, she still has anger issues and some days she gets overwhelmed when there are too many things going on. But, lets face it; those things are all manageable considering what others who are further along in the disease are experiencing

With her doing so much better I can understand why she keeps asking the doctor about the Aricept and what it’s suppose to be doing to help her. We know (well, I know) that Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease and it has no specific timeline of deterioration so it’s possible that Miss Cathy could be the way she is now for years to come. So, it’ all wonderful news but “what’s a caregiver to do?”

Lately I feel I have less purpose here. The first year was all about getting her acclimated to her (and my) new life and for some time she really seemed to struggle with the “day to day” and needed a lot of hands on care. And I was good at helping with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I want (or need her to be sick) it’s just that my days had purpose when she needed me and every day seemed to be a re-affirmation of my decision to leave my life to come join hers.

As time has gone by she’s more independent (compared to where she was after her fall in January of 2010) and has more days where she’s cleared headed and functioning like she had before her diagnosis (albeit slower than before).

She needs me less and I (feel anyway) like I’ve gone from caregiver to reluctant roommate. Or like I’m trapped in some vortex where it’s ten years ago and I’m on a visit home to see my mom but the visit never ends.

I hate to be a “Debbie downer” but I have to ask, “why am I still here?”

MIss Cathy goes country

Posted in February by

I don’t know when it started exactly. When I first moved in with Miss Cathy she would talk about how she’d occasionally watch a music video on CMT (Country music television) and I thought little of it.

Then I noticed that her days started to have a different soundtrack; instead of the usual sounds floating through the apartment of courtroom show gavels, one of the Cartwright’s’ needing “Pa” to help them out of a jam “down on the Ponderosa” or the applause of the game shows I would hear the soft twang of a guitar and warble of love lost from some unknown baritone.

I on the other hand seemed to be listening to the sounds of my own discontent. All I could hear were thoughts of how hard it is being here and questioning how much longer I can keep this commitment to care for Miss Cathy.

Believe me, I’m sick of the sound of my own belly aching and crying “whoa is me” but I don’t know….. I think I thought things would have gotten easier by now or…..different somehow-anything but the constant frustration, anger and ill at ease that I feel.

But, I constantly remind myself that this isn’t about me and it’s still early in the disease. This is the easy part where she’s more or less still herself so how can I possibly be thinking of bailing now? These are Halcyon days compared to what’s ahead.

So, I sit with my discontent, sharing coffee with it in the morning knowing it will leave me at some point during the day and freeing me to feel-sometimes joy, sometimes satisfaction in knowing that I’m doing the right thing but there’s never peace.

Mom on the other hand seems to have adjusted pretty well. Sure, the last tow years have been a big change for her too after living alone for almost ten years after pop died, but she’s always said she likes having family around. I’ve spent most of my life living alone, as if I were hatched and not part of any clan.

I can say that it is satisfying to know that she’s happy (or as happy as one can be with Alzheimer’s) I know that she likes having her son around-and I am “that” and I am “here”. Even though I keep to myself and lord knows we don’t talk very much she’s got Garth, Brooks, Dunn and Lady Antebellum to keep her company. It’s pretty much all country-all the time, she watches country music videos for hours at a time as she sits on the couch where she spends her days.

I drove her over to Tony’s for the Super Bowl last Sunday and on the drive we’d pretty much exhausted all conversation ten minutes into the hour plus drive leaving just the radio to fill the silence. But then I happened to switch from the classical station that I prefer to the country channel and through the rearview mirror I could see Miss Cathy light up like a Christmas tree.

Her mood was infectious and soon I was listening and humming along to the few songs or riffs that I recognized. We started talking between sets and before you know it we’d arrived at my brother’s place. I can’t remember having spent such a good time in her company for a long while.

Soon after we were inside the spell was broken, the old dynamics came back into play in my brother’s family room so I withdraw as Miss Cathy launched into a story that we’d all heard before but I could safely leave Tony and Suemi to be her audience as I once again turned to the sound of my own inner dialogue.

I wonder, like Miss Cathy’s new found interest in country music if this is just a phase or if I’m the last to know that this is it-life changes and suddenly you find yourself in Nashville and not in a New York state of mind.

Design in time for New Years Part IV: “Magic carpet ride” concluded

Posted in January by

The carpet guys started in Miss Cathy’s room, which meant putting ALL of her furniture into my little room (no bigger than Anne Frank’s domicile) while they ripped up the (blood) red carpet and padding. As they worked from room to room, hallway to closets the old flooring gave way to the new. The carpet had lain there for decades so I was surprised that it surrendered so easily, I thought it would be like prying a riffle out of Charlton Heston’s cold, dead hand but it came up without a fight.

During that marathon day the installers only took a half hour break for lunch, otherwise pretty much working straight through from 11:00 am till 7:00 pm. I did give them ice water and cut up some apple slices that I shared with them (I guess a little of the suburban hostess lives deep down inside of me).

I helped move furniture and when not needed I (deep) cleaned everything (when else was I going to have a chance to clean behind (and sometimes the bottom of) such heavy furniture.

By 4 pm I was ecstatic to see the carpet go down in the living room-no more baby blue carpet to ignore and design “around” as if it didn’t exist. At 4:30 pm I got a call from Miss Cathy asking if I was on my way to pick her up. In her defense I should have called her earlier (but forgive me I was trapped behind all of the living room furniture piled into the dining room and forgot about her).

She was none too pleased when I told her that the “surprise” was taking longer than I thought, I asked if she could just “hold tight” for a little while longer and I would pick her up “soon”. She grumbled a bit but I wasn’t really listening I was so focused on getting off the phone so I hurry the guys up.

By 6pm there were still finishing touches left to do on the hallway, closets and my little room. I was starting to get overwhelmed (evidenced by the sweat that started early in the day but was now full on flop sweat) with helping the installers finish, cleaning, putting things back and now having to contend with a mother anxious to come home. I was not looking forward to calling her back.

When I called the first thing she said was that she was “ready”-I told her I wasn’t, that it would be more like 7 pm before I got there and by her reaction you’d think I was the governor denying her appeal from getting the electric chair- I wondered if the other Ty felt like this when he was getting a home ready to view on Extreme Makeovers.

At 7:30 pm the installers were finished laying all the carpet and then they helped me put the heavier pieces of furniture back and the mattresses and beds back in place. As they left I gave them each a $10.00 tip- keeping twenty dollars in my pocket that I’d originally planned to give them but I was still miffed about being kept waiting so I kept the money as my own “Ty tip”. With them gone, I couldn’t do a barefoot happy dance on the new carpet; no I didn’t have time for any of that.

I spent the next half hour putting the bric back as best I could, giving up on opening another box after I noticed time ticking away on a clock I’d unpacked. I settled for trying to “dress” the living room so that at least there would be one space intact for the “reveal”.

With no time to shower and change, I splashed some water on my face and without so much as a spritze of cologne I was off to pick up Miss Cathy, dust and sweat my only accessories. True to form, she was sitting outside in a lawn chair in her friend’s garage waiting for me. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that this day was (in fact) all for her and pinned on a nice smile as I got out to greet her.

I made a detour to Kentucky Fried Chicken, thinking a bucket of the Colonel’s greasiest and finest would distract my passenger-I never saw Pennington and the like have to placate their families with a chicken wing but so be it.

She actually thawed out a little in the car-she was probably thrown by my actually talking to her on the ride home. Once we arrived I raced ahead (well, I didn’t have to race because after all this is “toddle along” Miss Cathy we’re talking about) to “fluff” and “tszuj” before she got to the door.

Once she was at the threshold I had her take her shoes off, close her eyes and hold my hand as I led her into the living room (by her halting steps you’d think she’d never set foot into her own home before). I felt just like the TV hosts leading the unsuspecting homeowners inside.

She opened her eyes and then…….nothing, like the book case that I “revealed “ to her a few weeks previously she didn’t quite get what she was suppose to see immediately but unlike the bookcase (where I had to tell her what was new in the room) she looked around, then down and said, “Oh…my….God!” Her face was a mix of wonder, shock, (horror?) and pure pleasure at what she as seeing.

Her reaction for the next half hour or so made all the sweat, pushing and pulling worth it. She walked from room to room looking at the carpet as if it might morph back into the old flooring, saying that now she knew what had taken so long and was surprised that so much was done in so “little” time. She was stunned and just so happy hugging me that I no longer cared that I smelled like the old, rolled up carpet that earlier lay like a corpse outside ready to be carted off to wherever they end up.

I reminded her that this was a present from both Tony and I (mostly me) and I could hear her telling the story of her surprise and how “blessed” she was for the next several hours as she called everybody she could think of.

The new carpet was by far the most dramatic of the changes that were to occur. Since that day there have been new custom faux-wood blinds installed to go with the silk drapes, new furniture for her bedroom and stainless steel range, over the counter microwave and refrigerator in the kitchen just in time for New Years’.

Currently I’m in the process of removing all the old wallpaper and painting the entire apartment. The dining and living rooms are painted and I’m working my way down the hall to the bathrooms and bedrooms.

She’s been a trooper with all the chaos, adapting quickly to the changes as I box up her things, peel, prime and paint around her.

With each new “reveal” Miss Cathy’s reaction has only grown and she seems happier with each change that I’ve made. I’m not done yet but we’re still early into the “New Year”. At present I’m under budget and over joyed with the results.

Design in time for New Years: Pt II ” Ty-Tips”

Posted in January by

With the carpet installation scheduled it was time to take a moment to re-think my approach to all the work I’d intended to do in the apartment. And with about two-thirds of my money spent it was time to re-evaluate my budget.

I had $ 500.00 left and there were still two to four things left on my “Design on a Dime” wish list. There were the appliances for the kitchen yet to buy plus all the paint and accoutrements. So I talked to my brother and we increased the budget by a thousand dollars, which would give me the option of shopping for an appliance (or two) as well buying all the paint and supplies I needed to tackle the kitchen.

Sometime in the 1980’s Miss Cathy got the idea that she wanted an all white kitchen cabinets, appliances, etc. Well, she had white GE appliances, which was a good start, but her cabinets were all dark wood with heavy brass hardware and handles. Since she couldn’t be bothered to paint all of the cabinetry, she bought white shelf liner contact paper and rolled it out over all the doors and drawers only, leaving the cabinets themselves dark wood. Suffice to say, the overall effect was not very appealing.

Since I couldn’t afford to replace/re-face all of the cabinetry I decided, “Design on a Dime” style that I would change the appearance of the existing kitchen with paint and new hardware.

So, bright and early one morning I’d gone to the local box hardware store and spent close to $50.00 on brushes and trays to get started. Soon after I got home it dawned on me to take a look around the house to see what we already had that I might be able to use.

A “Ty-Tip”: BEFORE starting any project always check your basement, garage or wherever you may store things from past projects, there may be items there that you can use and you’ll save yourself a lot of money in the process.

We live in a condo, not a house so I went to the storage unit instead of the basement to scrounge for things I could use. The good news is that I found brushes, rollers, trays, etc. Everything that I needed was there in a box among my late Pop’s things.

The bad news was that I had this brainstorm “after” I’d already spent the fifty dollars but, that’s why we always keep our receipts for at least 90 days after each purchase (another “Ty- Tip”).

No matter, I just returned everything on the next trip to the hardware store when I needed to shop for more of something else that I needed. That’s the thing about home renovation or decorating projects-you become a “regular” at your local box hardware store.

A” Ty-Tip”: Speaking of hardware stores, it’s a good idea to befriend a sales associate who knows the store, the products and how to use them. It’s not always easy since most hardware stores don’t require much of their employees besides a pulse so many have little in the way of knowledge, you’re lucky if you can find someone to help you that speaks standard English and doesn’t have an attitude (like a postal employee). But, usually there are one or two people who really like appliances, paint and everything else” hardware” and they are gems-but like most semi-precious stones you have to “pan” for them.

Once you have your hardware store advocate find out his/her schedule (not in a stalker kind of way) just casually ask, ”Oh, and when are you here next in case I have anymore questions” and try to shop when you know they will be there. It helps to build up a rapport with one person who knows the merchandise, can help you compare and contrast generic vs. name brand, can help you with returns, knows about special deals and can help you locate hard to find items.

My go-to guy is “Mike”, I found him quite by accident when I was shopping in the appliance clearance center looking for bargain appliances when he revealed that the paint department was really his “wheel-house”-Eureka! I struck gold in Lowe’s.

Mike was able to advise me how to remove the contact paper (a spray solution similar to wallpaper remover if the paper didn’t peel off by itself-luckily it did). And he was able to help me select a primer and line of paint that were similar in quality to the “name” brand (the “name” being the nom de plume used by one Mr. Ralph Lipschitz). So, I found top of the line quality products at a better price point. Ah yes, I could see that this was “the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Since the condo hadn’t been painted since Reagan was in office (and was in as many colors as could be found in a jar of the jellybeans he so loved) Mike strongly suggested priming every surface first. The primer not only absorbed odor, it covered stains and when dry creates a foundation for the paint color to lay on top of and not be absorbed into decades old walls thirsty for moisture.

With a bagful of supplies and new knowledge I went home to tackle the kitchen. It took me one week, two coats of primer but in the end the kitchen cabinetry was freshly painted the white that Miss Cathy always intended, with new brushed, nickel hardware (to match the stainless steel appliance that were on my wish list) and the pulls removed to add a cleaner, more contemporary look.

Miss Cathy was surprisingly quiet during all the chaos in the kitchen during the week. True to her word she asked no questions and just reached into cabinets that had no doors as if that were normal until they were put back up.

Most of the work I did in the afternoons when she was down for her nap and again in the evenings after she “went under” (her expression for sleeping). I started on Sunday the 19th and was finished on the 24th in the evening. I went to Miss Cathy’s room where she was laying down watching TV and asked her to come into the kitchen for the second “reveal” (the first being the ladder bookcase that I replaced her black lacquer and chrome monstrosity which housed the family pictures in the living room.)

It was then that I told her that her Christmas present would be a “revealed” over time and that there were many to come.

As she rounded the corner to the kitchen I had her close her eyes (just like they do on TV) and after a pregnant pause (those TV hosts ain’t got nothing on me) I said, “Open your eyes!” and by the look on her face it was all worth it.

“Ohhhh my goodness!” she explained as her hands fly up to her face in disbelief, “This is Gorgeous!”

“I had no idea you were going to do all this!”

I smiled to myself thinking,” Two down and more to come…..”

Next, Design in time for New Years Pt III “A magic carpet ride”

Blessings

Posted in December by

One day last week I was sitting in the parking lot of CVS waiting for Miss Cathy to come back from buying a disposable camera. We were on our way to her girlfriend’s house for a holiday visit when she decided that she wanted to take pictures of Adele’s newly renovated kitchen. She’d been in here the store awhile so I was giving her another 15 minutes before I went in to check whether or not she was lost in one of the aisles or passed out from finally getting some exercise outside of the apartment.

When she finally returned to the car and was buckled up she told what had taken so long. Apparently she walked to the back of the store to the Pharmacy department thinking that’s where the photo center was (it’s actually located just inside the door on the right, beside the registers). She stood in line waiting to ask for the photo center location when she found herself in conversation with the lady in line ahead of her.

They got to talking about prescription drugs and how expensive they were. The woman told mom that she was distressed because her prescriptions (even though they were generic) were almost $100.00 a month and she didn’t know if she had enough money for this month’s supply.

Hearing her story Miss Cathy decided to offer the lady ten of the twenty dollars that she brought to purchase the disposable camera. The lady refused saying that she couldn’t possibly take her money and that she didn’t want mom to think that she told her plight to illicit money.

Miss Cathy assured her that wasn’t the case, simply that hearing her story made her realize how blessed she was in her life and all that she’d been given. She told the lady that she had great insurance and didn’t need to worry about her prescription costs like so many and she’d been blessed with great children and then she told her new friend about Tony and me.

In the car mom told me how years ago a woman had offered her some money when she was running short and she’d always remembered the kindness of that stranger and wanted to so the same for someone else. She said that the ten dollars wasn’t much but it was half of what she had so she offered it.

I listened to her, thinking that she’d never seen the movie or heard the expression, “pay it forward” but that was indeed what she was doing. I forget that underneath her bluster and the anger that the disease seems to taking over her personality that she’s a sweet person with a good heart.

She insisted that the woman take the money. True to form Miss Cathy told me that at that very moment she was thinking, “You betta take this money lady-I don’t offer money often-and never to strangers.”

What she said to the lady was, “please take the money, you never know where your blessings are going to come from so you should never refuse them when they present themselves.”

Grateful and touched, the lady took the money and Miss Cathy toddled off to the front of the store after the cashier told her where to go. She made her purchase and off we went to visit Adele to give her the Christmas wreath I’d made and to see her new kitchen and holiday decorations.

Blowin’ in the wind

Posted in December by

Thanksgiving was over a week ago but a conversation I had with my sister-in-law, Suemi still lingers in my mind-like so much leftover turkey you don’t know what to do with.

We found ourselves alone in the kitchen the morning after the holiday, everyone else was still passed out from turkey overdose, so we had a chance to have a private chat.

“Mom surprised me,” she said.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen her and she looks so old, I’m surprised that she’s still walking so slow and using a cane. She doesn’t seem sure of her balance, always reaching out to grab onto something, like she thinks she’s going to fall. She’s how old? Seventy-three? Wow, by the way she walks and acts she looks ten years older.”

“It’s not only that”, she continued, “I can tell that she’s not the same, she’s not as confident as she used to be. I can see when I look into her face that something has changed.”

I listened, well aware of her metamorphosis into an “old lady”. Just a few years ago-before her diagnosis, she was active, independent and fearless, people were surprised when they found out how old she was. I listened, remembering who she was and quietly judging myself and wondering if I was being judged for her decline.

Suemi was surprised when I told her ho much Miss Cathy slept.

“Oh wow, that’s a lot!” she said eyes wide with amazement, “she can live another twenty years like that……just sleep, no work, no stress. A lot of old people live a long time that way.”

“Believe me I know,” I said nodding that I felt the same, “she’s like a bear hibernating through the rest of her life.”

But, she’s not completely stress free I reminded her, she still has her temper. Then I regaled my sister-in-law with some of the highlights of Miss Cathy’s rants against enemies and evils real and imagined.

I was kind of surprised that Suemi had seen so much change in Miss Cathy in just the space of three or four months.

She reminded me of the reason why I started this blog in the first place. I was very aware when I moved here that it was important to record the progression of her disease. I knew that change when come when I was busy tending to her and before I knew it ‘who she is’ would be the new normal and l would have forgotten how she ‘used to be’.

Tough as it is, these are the Halcyon days of Alzheimer’s, she’s still stage one dementia but the curtain can lift on stage two at any time and those challenges will make the previous diagnosis seem ‘quaint’ so I wanted to be sure to write it all down so that I could remind myself that it wasn’t all bad.

With caregivers, it seems that you deal with the person as they are “that day” and quickly you forget how it’s different from yesterday’s issues and challenges.

Some things, like the love you feel for them-and they for you are constant but everything else is kinda up for grabs. But knowing that, hell, and even writing about it doesn’t prepare you for an outsider’s observation (an outsider being anyone that isn’t their caregiver and hasn’t seen your loved one for awhile-be they friend or family) that validates your purpose.

Suemi held up a mirror so that I could see Miss Cathy (and myself) and it hit me that Thanksgiving this year is yet another marker of change in our family. We’re not a particularly sentimental bunch (well, I am but I’ve long maintained that someone made a scramble with the babies when I was born and I was left with the wrong people-all evidence and my striking familial resemblance to the clan aside).

Anyway, Thanksgiving became important to us as a family back in1997. It was the last time my pop was healthy enough to celebrate the holiday before cancer took him away the following spring. He’d been in the hospital just days before and the doctors weren’t holding out hope that he’d ever leave (alive) but he proved them wrong buy not only getting better, he sat at his place at Tony’s holiday table and ate like a man half his age and filled the room with his deep Barry White baritone and laughter. Since then we’ve made it a point to get together on the last Thursday in November.

And now, after not being at Tony’s last year because Miss Cathy just didn’t want to go we were all together this year but it’s different now. Not only do we have the memory of pop at the thanksgiving table to top our list of thanks, this year we add Miss Cathy’s joy and spontaneous “Star spangled banner”.

We will come together next here but the reality is that she probably won’t be the same but who knows, maybe she’ll surprise us and sing her favorite Bob Dylan song:

“How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the canon balls fly before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind”.

Turkey Hash

Posted in November by

I was in the car driving Miss Cathy over to my brother’s for Thanksgiving; it was quiet so I turned on the radio to pass the time. NPR was in the middle of an interview with an author (I didn’t catch his name or the title of his book) who was from a family of ten children and even though they grew up in great poverty each child went to college, became successful and distinguished themselves in many different fields.

The radio host, Diane Reims asked to what did he attribute his and his siblings’ dedication to education and life accomplishments. The author said that their mother, a woman who had very little schooling herself instilled in them a passion for learning and was the reason they were all so successful.

Upon hearing this I looked at Miss Cathy seated in the backseat through the rearview mirror and said, “Hey, they could be talking about you.”

To which she responded, “Well, where was the daddy?” “Doesn’t he deserve any of the credit?” “Makes me sick how it’s always the mother that gets all the praise.”

“Oh my, the dealer passes”, I thought to myself. Instigating a rant about how fathers don’t get enough credit for their offspring’s success was not my intent. Listening to the author reminded me how much my brother and I owe Miss Cathy. I was just trying to pay the old bird a compliment as we were stuck in traffic on our way to eat a bird of the Butterball variety.

I tried to interrupt to remind her that I trying to give her a compliment but it was too late; she was already in full career. But, like so many conversations I have with her these days you never know what she’s going to say or how long she’s going to stay on topic.

I have learned that her ‘’default’ response is something negative (see exchange above for proof). I took a detour off t Interstate 95 (it can take you from Maine to Florida to see grandma and that’s apparently what everyone was doing that Thanksgiving morning).

The rest of the ride was pleasant; I’d switched to the classical station for the duration of the drive to avoid any further conversation.

Thanksgiving dinner at my brother’s had become a tradition for years after my Pop died as it was the last time the entire family had been together before he died in 1998. We didn’t come over last year because Miss Cathy just didn’t want to leave home so it was nice to all be together again, even if it was just for a couple of days.

As always, my sister-in-law, Suemi set a beautiful table worthy of a photo spread in Food &Wine magazine. We all took our usual places at the table, assigned long ago; Tony and Suemi at the ends, Nile across from me and Zachary across from Miss Cathy with Tony on her right. After the prayer led by my mother we began the meal. The meal started and we’d all begun to fill our plates and bellies with all the traditional goodies in front of us. We were chattering along, nothing memorable or of great consequence, just the typical conversations families engage in when they’re all together for a holiday when all of a sudden Miss Cathy started to sing,” what so proudly we hail from the twilight’s last gleaming”.

When she got to the end of the stanza she wasn’t sure of the next line so I started singing along, feeding her the words, encouraging her to continue. So she sang on, this time louder and with more confidence, her voice clear and surprisingly melodic.

Tony joined in and soon the three of us were singing as the other looked on smiling. Tony nodded for Zach and Nile to join in and Suemi did as well, the entire family singing what we remembered of he Star Spangled Banner:

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming

And the rockers’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

When we finished I led the applause. It was a wonderful, corny, spontaneous movie moment, out of nowhere and out of context. A lot like my life living with Miss Cathy; unexpected and full of surprised-just without the singing usually.

People who need people

Posted in November by

One day last week I was listening while Miss Cathy was talking-there’s really no other way to describe a ‘conversation’ with her really. She was telling me that she’d decided against having a girlfriend drop by for a visit. I listened as she complained about how this particular friend was someone who hated to be alone and how she constantly needed to be around someone. Mom made a point of “not” empathizing with her friend’s personality trait, saying that she didn’t understand people ‘like that’ because she was perfectly fine to be on her own.

“I get tired of her calling all the time, she’s so persistent”, she fumed, “wanting to come over here or for me to go over there. Stay home, I’m tired, entertain your own damn self.”

Exactly what she was ‘tired’ from I had no idea-a long hard day of watching TV perhaps. Frankly, I’d have thought she’d relish the opportunity to talk to someone (anyone), lord knows the two of us don’t do much of that anymore, we’re like that old married couple that’s heard each other’s stories and jokes one (or six hundred and twenty-eight) times to many-at least I feel that way.

I know it all sounds a little harsh but what do I know, they’re her friends and she’s got a right to have whatever feelings she wants to have about them. I just worry that one day she’s going to wake up and realize that she’s alienated them all and there’ll be no friends left to rail against.

She becomes quite agitated when she’s talking about something that’s happened between them. She gets herself wound up like a clock and her face becomes flush with emotion. I’ve warned time and again that she’s going to give herself an aneurism investing so much emotion in telling her tales. I try to remind her to just ‘tell the story’ and not to ‘re-live’ it-she’d have been a great Method actor.

Besides, the girlfriend she’s talking about is the very person that helped find her after she’d had her fall last year. If it wasn’t for the ‘persistence’ of this friend there’s no telling if or when anybody would have found her on her bathroom floor.

That fact alone would give that person a lifetime pass (in my book anyway) to come over or have me do whatever they wanted (you want to go to the Piggly Wiggly-no problem, I’ll push the grocery cart. Drop by at seven a.m. for a chat-I’ll put the kettle on). But hey, that’s just me.

I know she’s grateful and I know that she loves her friend but lately I’m noticing a shift toward the negative.

She’s also full of contractions, I know for a fact that as much as she rails against her friends and family she can work herself up into a panic if a few days pass and she hasn’t heard from one of them on the telephone. And telephone she does, morning noon and night, I hear her on the phone talking but that’s not how you maintain relationships (especially one’s that are within a ten-mile radius).

Besides, isn’t it better to have something to look forward to-even if it’s a visit from a friend you’re not particularly crazy about (that day) instead of just watching TV and napping until it’s time to go to bed at night? I worry that at the rate she’s going all she’ll have is the past because there’ll be no future (friendships anyway).

Maybe she has some variation of ‘survivor’s guilt’. While she’s grateful to her friend for helping to save her life maybe it’s hard to be around her now because her friend reminds her of that day and her diagnosis. I don’t know, I’m not ‘in’ their friendship. I just know that Miss Cathy seems to have less time in her day for people and the irony is that all she has is time.

Sometimes I wonder if being ornery is because of her age or her diagnosis, it’s hard to separate sometimes. Unfortunately, It’s not like I have a ‘quote, un-quote’ ‘normal’ seventy-three year in a closet somewhere that I can pull out as a control group-you know, some old person that I can gauge their reactions against hers.

No, all I have is Miss Cathy, she’s my ‘people’ and cranky or not, consistent or not, I’m still one of the luckiest people in the world because I do need her (although some days I’d just like a less chatty, nicer version of ‘her’).

Ahh-choo

Posted in October by

I was sick with a cold most of last week and have just come back to the land of the living.

At the first sign of my cold Miss Cathy started to hover, trying to mother me but I shoo-ed her away with my best, “It’s only a cold”, telling her that I’d be fine once it’d run it’s course. After all, it was only just a cold. I’m lucky that I’m in reasonable health and not plagued by the usual maladies, aches and pains that a lot of my contemporaries have.
After all, I’m fifty-two and that is an age where the body starts to betray us if we’re not careful.

I’m used to living alone and this was the first time in a lonnnng time that someone has been around to witness every sniffle and see the trail of discarded, crumpled, pieces of toilet paper that I use to blow my nose and leave wadded up in my room on tabletops, the bed, the desk or any other surface I happen to be near at the time, stopping to picks them up much later when they look like faded, white flowers littering my bedroom.

Disgusting I know but that’s ‘single person’ behavior-when you live alone (no matter how fastidious, neat and tidy one might be otherwise) a cold is when (for me anyway) my inner “Oscar Madison” comes out (the slob half of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple”).

I don’t think I’d been sick around my mother since I was a teenager so I’d forgotten how she behaves. In the last year I’d grown accustomed to my role of taking care of her so it was odd to be in a position where she was back in her role as caregiver to me.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with having Miss Cathy take care of me, what adult doesn’t like to return to childhood (if only for a moment) and be doted on by a parent, taking you back to the days when you didn’t have a care in the world and you knew because you were sick that whatever you wanted only had to be asked for.

But, life as I know it is now is focused on me taking care of her and (hopefully) making her days as carefree as possible.

Besides, what was okay at six or even sixteen isn’t as easy to accept on this side of life, that awkward age when at fifty-two you’re no longer middle aged (how many one hundred and four year olds do you know?) and you’re not quite “old” –yet, and your seventy three year old mother is futzing with your pillows and insisting that you eat and drink when all you want to do is curl up into a ball and die (in between blowing your brains out into toilet paper).

Add to that Miss Cathy bringing me concoctions like hot tea with orange juice. After I took a few sips of the god awful brew I asked her what was in the tea and she replied, “I didn’t have any lemons so I added the orange juice because you know, orange juice is good for you when you have a cold.”

Ye, I agree. But not together-hot!

Then there were the times that she woke me up-just to make sure that I was sleeping (as apposed too?….I know I’m her baby boy and everything but the possibility of me being a victim of SIDS is long past.)

And there was the trepidation I’d feel whenever she’d come into my room with a tray carrying a bowl of “Chicken soup”. I could never be quite sure what she may have added to the broth-it’s not like I was expecting dead rat over rice under the cloche like in “What ever happened to Baby Jane?” but still, there were some questionable ingredients in her soups-like whole cloves of garlic (to open up my sinuses or to ward off vampires I guess) and in the same bowl there might be noodles and rice-starch much?!

But, I drank her tea (or as much as I could stomach) and I ate the food that she brought me because I could see that she was enjoying the role-reversal-and believe me without her help I probably would have been sicker a lot longer. I think she felt good to be back in charge and not the person waiting for their pills, meals or to be helped in the bathroom.

For a few days she got to be who she used to be for me; my protector, provider and confidant and I gotta say, that was worth a few sniffles.

Out with the old-in with the (not quite) new

Posted in October by

One day I found myself standing in the small appliance aisle at Target shopping for an electric can-opener. We needed a new one (again) because Miss Cathy had gone through two since I’d moved in-not mention the two hand-held can-openers she’d also broken.

The latest malfunction occurred when she tried to open a can with a flip top lid. I was in my room working when I heard a horrific noise (it sounded like a couple of drunken cats singing through auto-tune). At first I ignored it but couldn’t the second time and went into the kitchen to investigate.

When I entered the room there she was, standing with the mutilated (and unopened) can in one hand and a perplexed expression on her face. I took the can from her, pulled the flip top lid and poured the contents into the waiting saucepan on the stove top.

“You can’t try to open cans with the electric can opener that already have a flip top,” I explained to her. “See, it’s even got a graphic on the top of the can. It’s a drawing of an opener inside a red circle with a line drawn through it to tell you not to use a can opener.””

“Oh, is that what that is” she said unfazed, stirring the sauce with a wood spoon,” I couldn’t tell what the was without my reading glasses on.”

“Well, that’s it for this can-opener.” I said as I unplugged it and threw it in the garbage can before going back to work in my room.

So, that’s how I came to be standing in this century’s version of “Woolworth’s” about to pay another $25.00 for a small kitchen appliance that had about as much chance of seeing in the New Year as an open bottle of good champagne.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I found myself putting the Hamilton Beach product back on the shelf, leaving the store and driving to one of the second-hand stores that I scavenge for the occasional mid-century piece of furniture or object d’art.

It’d dawned on me standing at the register in Target that I’d spent about $75.00 on electric can openers since I’d moved here over a year ago (and I’d yet to replace the skillets and saucepans that Miss Cathy had decimated-usually by forgetting that the burner was on high and walking away, scorching the pan-not to mention burning whatever was in it. And there was the ruined Teflon surfaces that she’d scratched up using silverware or other metal to stir or turn the food in the pans).

I’d realized that it was getting pretty expensive to replace things around the apartment and if I’m here for the marathon I’d have to pace myself financially to go the distance.
The appliances, the cookware…. the telephone, it was all just more collateral damage of the disease.

That day in Target I’d come to realize that places like the Goodwill, Valu Village and other second-hand stores are gold mines for the things that I needed as well as the fun things that I wanted.

Why pay retail for things you know your loved one with dementia are going to break (eventually-but not intentionally) when there is a low-cost alternative for those with a discerning eye.

Of course one would have to be very selective about the things they bought but I’ve gotta say, a lot of the second-hand stores have merchandise that’s in very good condition and some even have brand new items from stores that are over-stock that they sell at a greatly reduced price.

I suggest finding second-hand and thrift stores in/around or near upscale neighborhoods (their cast-offs are usually always of a higher quality than those of people on lower-income brackets).

For example, instead of paying $20 to $35 dollars for a new can opener I bought one (that had been “gently used”) for $6.00 (and it was a Hamilton Beach appliance) and it works great. I got the same bargains for the cookware, too. I paid $5 and $10 dollars for pans that would easily cost $50.00 or more at Macy’s.

The way I see it, Miss Cathy still deserves the best-I’m just giving her the best that someone else had purchased first.

So now she can break and burn with abandon (because we all know it’s just a matter of time before it happens again) and the can-opener’s days are numbered but I don’t have to worry about counting because I know where to get a quality back up cheap.