memories

Ought, Cough, Bough

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Wordle is a game that makes me happy. I found that thought in my head after finding the wordle answer a couple days ago. It matters not that I needed one guess or five guesses. There is no competition. (And yet there is someone on the World Wide Wait that needs to explain to me why it is popular.) It is a personal challenge. It is the first thing I open on my tablet in the morning, well, almost. Sometimes the book I was reading the night before opens itself and I read that for a little bit.

Cheryl is semi-sleeping now. I checked on her. She is “trying to decide” about getting up. We have no scheduled activities or she does not. Actually I do.

Early in the morning while she is in this mode, I have time to look at other things, check email, see what folks are whining about on Facebook. Facebook has a strange way of posting things on my “news feed”. Calendar time seems to have little to do with it, maybe, nothing to do with it. It must be a complicated algorithm. Ho Hum. After determining that there are no email, Facebook or other emergencies, I move on. It amuses me to notice how many folks will post something on a group page which might better be solved by picking up the phone, I look at WordPress to think and gain some inspiration to add to this blog of mine.

The statistics page is often of interest since much of the display intrigues me. Today this little display in the corner seems to report that someone in Thailand looked at my blog.

That in itself is not strange. Type a random thing into Google and it returns all sorts of unrelated finds. But all seven views were of an old post I entitled “Things that make you Happy” and I reread it this morning. I found inspiration in my own words.

Over the past weekend we visited with my cousin Bettie and her husband Herb. It is always a great time with family and friends that we do not see that often. Bettie’s house is perhaps forty-five miles away south and east. It is a pleasant drive through the northern Kentucky countryside and for Cheryl it is a far away destination. On this particular weekend the hurricane that crossed Florida and came ashore at Georgetown, South Carolina had spread its cloud deck inland to eastern Ohio and Kentucky.

On the start of our trek it was bright and sunny. I aimed the car south and east towards Bettie and Herb’s place and drove under the cloud deck. Watching to sun go down from their front porch and side deck was magnificent. My son remarked to me that he had not seen a rainbow before. I do not know whether he meant ever or as brilliant as this one was. It was perfect timing for a follow up question but I did not ask him. Carpe the missed diem.

Like most things I have taken pictures of with the smartphone’s camera, the pictures do not capture the magnificent colors that were produced by nature. The rainbow produced by the narrow view the sun had of the under side of the cloud deck and upper misty air was brilliant and exceedingly bright. The pictures simply do not do it justice. But being there with family and friends and watching a unique sunset made me happy.

Happy to be alive and happy I was able to share the moment with Cheryl.

Carpe Diem

A Wonderful Weekend

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This was a wonderful spontaneous weekend.

We went to visit one of Cheryl’s good friends and former classmates Rosie. Rosie is Sister of St. Francis in Oldenburg Indiana. I always learn things about religion, spirituality and altruism from S. Rosie. She probably does not know that she is doing it. She is so very gentle and kind with Cheryl when we visit her. Cheryl and she were close in school.

Many years ago S. Rosie had a very severe illness which put her in a coma for a bit and ultimately she had a near death experience. She strongly believes that she is able to see and interact with the spirit world. This conversation developed as Cheryl shared that she sees her sister and her mother often. Both are recently deceased. I can attest to this connection Cheryl has with Janice and Elaine. I am guilty of reminding her where one or the other of them is when she bursts from her office and wonders aloud where they went or needs to call one of them on the phone. My answer is to point out that I do not have the number for heaven if she wants to call but if she closes her eyes she will be able to see and talk to them. Little did I know that that is a good idea. I was merely scrambling to help through her current anxiety of location and place.

When Cheryl was describing the experience to S. Rosie, Cheryl with gentle probing from Rosie admitted that she was worried about “going crazy” and that fact is disturbing. Rosie suggested that she embrace the vision as real and told a story her a story about one of her encounters with a spirit that had twirled her around while Rosie was walking with another friend. Her friend asked what happened to her and Rosie described her encounter. Her friend responded with exactly, I saw your side of it. We talked a little about whether Cheryl’s disease had detuned (my word not Rosie’s) her logical, reasoning side of her brain and allowed the intuitive, spiritual connecting brain to emerge. Occasionally I wonder if that occurs to many of us naturally and those who have that insightful perception are ridiculed as crazy or crackpots so they keep their vision to themselves. (What happened at Fatima?)

All of us talk to people that may no longer be in this world but we were close to in some fashion before they passed into the next world. My sister and I tease about things that Mom would say to us. Every time I carry an Amazon box out to the recycle bin I hear Mom say, “Don’t throw away that box. That’s a good box!” I think she told me that in the flesh a week or so before she passed away. It may sound unrealistic but I can actually hear her voice in my head. My sister Joyce tells me that Mom tells her to, “Water that plant!” We both have different mother-child experiences.

The brain floats in a soup of proteins, hormones and other chemistry. The real world is not inside our brain but what is there is our perception of it. Some of Cheryl’s sensory systems are defunct. She has not had a strong sense of smell for about fifteen years. (Handy for the husband who does not feel like taking a shower that day.) She can still construct smells in her head from sight and texture and perhaps the saltiness or sweetness she can still detect with her tongue. Her brain reconstructs smells from experience and using different pathways of sensing its surroundings. What if the intuitive side jumps up and says, “I see something and it is …” The worldly side takes note and Janice appears.

Perhaps one should not be dismissive of hallucinations and visions. What happened at Fatima and other places where incredible things were see by those who could see and were not afraid to tell those who could not? My spiritual self tells me that there is a connection among all sentient beings in some way. Lovers of dogs, for example, are heartbroken when an old companion dies. (Cat lovers too.) I once had a guy who worked for me who wanted to claim funeral leave when his life long German Shepard companion, he was a young man, passed away. And I understood his grief but it did not fly with the HR crowd at that company.

What if Cheryl’s deterioration of her logical, mathematical, connected mind allows her to see with the other part of her brain that does not do math? Cheryl revealed to Rosie that she was not scared of the vision of the spiritual side but she was concerned with getting there (and at that point she began to weep.) Her mother and her sister are very real to her when they appear. She talks to them about what is happening in her life.

She sees others in our little condo area. There is “that person who is in charge” of the school. There is a group of women who hang out occasionally in our window seat in our bedroom. (I started wearing pajamas to bed instead of just underwear or nothing.) Shortly after one of our residents in the next building passed away in July she saw a gray haired woman with a short hair style charging down the back hallway as we were leaving to go somewhere. The woman was vivid enough that Cheryl asked me if I had seen her. It could have been Marty. Cheryl’s description of the woman at the time put me in mind of Marty. A couple of weeks previous I held Marty’s arm to help her step over a curb stone during a meeting with our landscaping company to discuss a new plants installation near her front door.

Those visions do worry her. She seems to understand seeing her mom and her sister but seeing others who are not family is worrisome to her.

But what if she merely has a view to some other elsewhere some other existence? What if?

Carpe Diem.

Farther down the road go we.

I Found Words from Dad

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I found this old letter in among other pictures from my mother. I have a couple plastic tubs of “Mom and misc.” Recently I was looking through these looking for something else.

For awhile I thought about Dad and our relationship. I found in my memory stories that I have about him.

When you think about people who have died, they are alive again. At least for a little while they are here with us.

Carpe Diem.

Where have Handwritten Notes Gone?

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I have saved a lot of old crap. Like most people I suppose have saved from the earlier part of their lives. Always with the intent of “doing something” with that letter, that picture, that article, that thing.

A few months ago I found a bag of that kind of stuff in my armoire crammed in the back of a bunch of other memorabilia. My diplomas and certificates and other ATTAboys are stuffed into the same place near socks and pajamas. My sister refers to these as little treasures.

In this particular bag left over from Waldenbooks (remember them?) I found a collection of old letters written by Cheryl to me in high school. These are not love letters. She is merely writing to tell me about her day. In the example I show here she has continued her letter on the next day, so, it is two letters.

Six pages of handwritten conversation as though I was there or at least on the telephone with her show several concepts of interest. The first thing to note is that her cursive when she was seventeen is written as though it is on lined paper even though there are no guidelines on the stationary. The second thing I noticed as I re-read her note was how she must have taken to heart practicing her craft in grade school and high school. The letter is dated and located and each page is numbered so the reader is not confused.

Not as much emphasis is placed on American standard cursive as it once was when we were children. Many of the MEME-ers on Meta believe this is appalling. I think it merely shows progress in education.

These days Parkinson has stolen her cursive from her as well as other things. Her ability to think in a straight line is gone. Cursive writing is just another item greatly diminished in our new life. And handwritten notes seem to be a thing of the past as we leap into the SMS message days. I have been chided by others for not responding to text messages rapidly. I notice that my smartphone service does not always provide a little chirp when a message appears and I am okay with that.

That last thought sent off to contemplate the idea that voice phone calls except from Mumbai are mostly none existent.

Carpe Diem.

Dressing the Bed

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When I make the bed in the morning, lots thoughts run through my mind.  I imagine that everyone does this or at least everyone who makes the bed consistently. I recognize that not everyone dresses the bed in the morning before work or other chores. These days it is often a necessity.

I once remarked to my sister-in-law as we traveled to our pizza Tuesday destination or some other dinner destination and she asked Cheryl, “Is this a good day?” that it is a good day. There is no extra laundry. As this disease moves on occasionally there is extra laundry.  That there is none does not equate to a good day so it was just a stupid comment. Uncalled for as I looked back on it this morning while getting the extra laundry in the mixed load started.

Laundry is one of those chores I never did before this disease. It crept into my life four or five years ago. Now I am defensive about my methods and organization of it.

But what started me down this meditative road this morning was not laundry, it was the thought of a good day.

A week or so ago on the family chat text session, Ken remarked that he could get pizza delivered to his slip where he docked his pontoon boat at the lake he lives near. I texted him late in the evening to ask if he was up for pizza Tuesday and early in the morning he said he was. Her face lit up when I told her that Ken was coming for pizza Tuesday.

A few days ago I asked her brothers and sisters to spend more time with Cheryl or simply call on the phone to chat. It is something she really enjoys. It is also something that is difficult for her to do on her own with her current diminished cognitive ability. Tonight her brother is coming to share pizza.

She probably will not remember he is coming until she sees him.

And Ken being Ken was already there when we got to the restaurant from the occupational therapy session this afternoon. Her face lit up again. He slipped into the back of the booth we selected across from Cheryl. They talked about family. Cheryl occasionally struggled to find a word or a name. Ken waited. They talked more about old times that had occurred in this very restaurant when it had a different name.

It was a great visit. Cheryl thanked me for the great evening. I thank Ken for his patience and gracious support and understanding of his sister’s struggles.

It was a good day.

Carpe Diem.

Memory Loss

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Lately i have been reading Gwendy’s Final Task by Richard Chizmar and Stephen King. I became tired of violent crime novels and this book claims to be the final volume of a trilogy. Perfect I thought. Stephen can be wordy although I think he is a good story teller. And Maine is apparently a mess, Castle Rock anyway.

Gwendy the main character is losing her memory and is very aware of it. She maybe dealing with beginning Alzheimer’s or something like it. It is disturbing to her. I wonder if it is realistic to think that folks like Gwendy or Cheryl or others dealing with a chronic illness that destroys one memory are aware of it happening. It is a scary thing to Gwendy in the novel. She talks of how names just disappear from her head and the struggle she has to get the thought back.

There is a lot more to the story but Gwendy is actively hiding her memory issues. Initially she forgets names and her neurologist and psychiatrist doctor has taught her a little memory association technique that helps her through most situations. And Stephen King has a device in his story that works even better. I wish there was such a device for Cheryl. I wish the device did not require the ending that Stephen has worked out for Gwendy.

More and more I hunt for memory tricks to help her. It may be too late for many of those to be useful. Getting out of the car I repeat, “One hand on the door and one hand on the chair and you are out of there.” I have little knowledge of whether that’s working but more and more she reaches for the car door inner handle and puts her left hand on the seat back to propel herself up to a standing position. She often does not need me to repeat it.

Maybe that is helpful. Repetition and repeated talking about what to do makes a new connection in her brain. I often repeat the ABC song in my head to find alphabetical order. The sing-song about the months never stuck with me. So, the connection does not always happen.

Memory loss is discouraging to the care partner. Memory loss is mostly unknown to the parkie that has it. It shows up constantly. — Who put these papers here? Why is someone messing with my papers? Those little girls are always playing with my papers. I better put my papers in my office and close the door. Substitute any valid noun for papers. She puts on two pairs of socks because she forgot to take one pair off before putting a clean pair on.

It (memory loss) destroys any planning skills. The holiday season is next week we better start making cookies. I don’t know why they keep moving the months around. When I see the doctor next week I want to talk about my medicines. (It is a December appointment.) Sometimes anger appears because people keep changing things around.

Fortunately not all parkies experience this memory thing.

Carpe Diem.

Happy Anniversary (52)

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I woke up this morning and there on my Facebook feed
Was this beautiful expression of love on our anniversary

It was made by my friend Edie down south
God spoke to her, we never talk by mouth

She has this exquisite talent she is sharing
she posted this on the day of our pairing

Edie, you did not know
that fifty two years ago

Cheryl and I were wed. Thanks for your art.
This day is special, thanks for the great start.
August 29, 1970

It was a seriously hot day. We were dressed to the nines. We were skinny. Life was in front of us.

Happy anniversary to us!

Carpe Diem. (I do not know why I wrote 53) 🙂

Not For a While

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She fainted this morning. She has not fainted for a long time.  Orthostatic hypotension. In Cheryl’s case in the past she would faint sitting at the table after breakfast. She reads the paper and absorbs her Cheerios and occasionally faints. But she has not passed out for a long time. She takes a pill intended to raise her blood pressure. I started this post on August 11. As she exercises in front of me on August 23rd I am finishing my thoughts.

Breakfast is/was  monkey bread. A local bakery makes a coffee cake composed of balls of sugary dough rolled in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. These are pressed into the pan and allowed to proof. They call it monkey bread. A different small neighborhood bakery I knew as a child called it by the less imaginative title of “pullapart”. It is easy t make. It contains a lot of sugar which makes me wonder if that or some other carbohydrate metabolism reduces her BP.

She is generally a little foggy after a fainting episode. Her shower and dressing afterward needed instructions and encouragement. It is exercise class day and I will not let her miss it. I am a stinker about that but exercise always perks her up.

Exercise is seated cardio class introduction. There are a lot of dance moves and some upper body boxing style motions. The idea is to raise your heart rate into what experts call a cardio workout. It is a new thing for Cheryl. the leader, Joelle, is a substitute today and she teaches this style of exercise class on two days that Cheryl does not come to PCF. On the way home Cheryl told me she liked the exercise class. I can get her to exercise class four times a week.

Makes me cry to see her going again, especially after I had to lay her on the kitchen floor to recover from her fainting spell about 2 hours ago. Joelle is playing “Summer Wind” by Frank Sinatra on her Bose speaker laying on the floor of the exercise area. This music is nostalgic for me. I used it for background when I put together a slide show of pictures from a cruise trip we took many years ago that was purchased for us by our daughter and her husband.

When I got home today I looked high and low for pictures from that trip to insert here but, alas, I am a poor filer. The pictures are somewhere. Maybe.

Carpe Diem.

MMXXII and Enjoy the Moment

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Tim Scott has a new book. It has just been published so he is making the rounds promoting his new effort. Perhaps merely because he is intelligent and half of the Senate representation from South Carolina but probably also because he is black and Republican, the CBS Morning newsies cannot resist asking questions that have little to do with his book.

To a question about whether he was considering a run for the Presidency of the U. S. he responded, “… You shouldn’t worry what’s next if you haven’t finished what’s now.” He gets my new life philosophy.

Carpe Diem. Latin for seize the day. I use it to end my little posts about various issues Cheryl is dealing with but it is also a reminder to me to stay in the present. Do not linger in lamentation over perceived losses. Stay focused on the now. But do not get so narrow minded that everything has to be “just so.” It can be good enough. (An engineer would add – for who it’s for.)

Do not become anxious about the future unless you are making a list of stuff to take care of before leaving on an extended trip. Worrying about what is to come is of no useful purpose. Plan and if God laughs at you, laugh with Him.

Carpe Diem to me also means stay in the moment. Enjoy this moment. Take a selfie if you want to have a remembrance in some future time. I personally do not understand the selfie thing. Most of the selfies I see on Facebook do not give one a sense of where one is. Occasionally there is a glimpse of beach or Mickey Mouse ears but often the background is some drinking establishment which could be anywhere in the world. I have also noticed that the camera aficionados in my family point the camera away from themselves. Me included.

Cheryl found this image of my youngest sister, Laura and her husband Jeff. They look very happy. Laura looks radiant. They are enjoying the moment. I maintain it is impossible to look this happy and not be happy in your soul.

This picture was made pre-smart phone. It is therefore not a selfie. Many years ago I visited with my west coast sister in Seattle. I was working on a job farther north in Vancouver BC. Walking down Market St. I was nearly clothes-lined by some woman with her selfie stick. It was the first time I had seen a selfie stick. (Oh, I have wandered off into the weeds.)

Carpe Diem.

Donut Day

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It was going to be doughnut day and I forgot. Alas. Woe is me.

Going down this sometimes bumpy, sometimes smooth road of Parkinson, I hunt for ways to make memories. Happy memories. You have to see how Cheryl’s face lights up when there are doughnuts for breakfast. You will know then why getting up early to go find doughnuts is a special memory. Cheerios will not go nearly as far to creation of happiness.

Skeptics will report that doughnuts are not good food. Some will even report that doughnuts are bad for you. Others will discuss yogurt and oat bran and report their studied benefits to those I say malarkey, nonsense and bovine feces. Nothing, absolutely nothing compares to a lightly textured butter enhanced wheat dough gently lofted by yeast plants straining for full growth finished in deep oil at the proper temperature and upon proper cooling, coated with a just-right glaze of sugary vanilla. (I know you can taste it. That is because I am eating one while writing. Darn, sugar on the keyboard.)

I offer only condolences to those with celiac disease. Gluten free donuts are a sad replacement. I offer condolences to those who are lactose intolerant also for they are doomed to enjoy margarine and vegetable oil.

Nevertheless as we returned home from our dinner at a diner and a walk around the park last night, Cheryl expressed an interest in having doughnuts for breakfast. I agreed but at 8 PM those are hard to find and when you do there is little selection. I said I would get up early and go find some. Alas, this morning that thought had not remained with me overnight.

Cheryl got up a little after 8 with no help from me. I heard her stirring in the bathroom and went to be an annoying helicopter care partner. All was well. I asked her what she wanted for breakfast to which she replied, doughnuts! I was initially crestfallen as I had forgotten our discussion. I put on clothing and went to our local IGA to see what was still available in their Busken Bakery cabinet. Fortunately for me the selection still contained kettle danish which is a favorite of hers. I will eat any combination of sugar and wheat dough. No favorites for me, although, my grandson once brought me a maple iced long john which a strip of bacon on top. Yummy. (When you are in Chicago next time find some “fried dough” — fattening but exquisite.)

The day was saved. The crisis was averted. Dip-able things appeared next to my coffee. Perhaps I will make a new pot.

Carpe Diem.