memories

Florida Again

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After a few months, I find myself in Florida again without Cheryl. In June of 2023 when Cheryl and I came to the Florida panhandle with Anna and her family it was fun and it was exhausting. This time Cheryl is not with me. This time Joyce is often driving and I am able to watch the scenery. This time is different.

Last summer may have been our last trip together. This trip is not the first one without her that I was not going to work but this trip feels different. I cannot put my finger on what is different. Is it because Cheryl is not with me and it is the nation’s designated vacation spot? Surely that’s not it. I am visiting family with family. Is it because I am not worried or concerned about her care? As I was visiting with my sister in the previous October? I am still analyzing those thoughts.

Judy’s pool view

This trip started as an invitation to participate in an informational weekend about  the activities supported by the Southern Poverty Law Center  founded years ago by Julian Bond et al.

The weekend’s events culminated in jubilee commemoration of Bloody Sunday 59 years ago on the march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.

Edmund Pettus Bridge

My impression of Selma is that it is remarkably poor. This impression is supported by empty and boarded up storefronts and the slow or non-existent recovery from the tornado that passed through a couple years ago. Whatever the vision is in the leadership of the great State of Alabama may be for the future it seems to have left the the small village of Selma behind. It is a pretty area. The few pictures I took of the river area show this fact and Selma has a grand boulevard in the center of it. There is a Walmart Super Center less than two miles from the town center. Big box stores tend to kill off the core of little towns. It seems to be happening here.

The bridge crossing happened on Sunday and after we walked across the bridge and completed wading through the crowd on the other side taking selfies and deciding what to do next and generally recrossing the bridge on the sidewalks back to the carnival atmosphere a block off the side of the boulevard, we found our bus back to Montgomery. That evening we went to a nice local restaurant for dinner. Fifty-nine years ago many of those bridge crossing folks spent the night in jail or the hospital somewhere. It is quite a contrast, then and now, but the poverty is still there.

The next day we were off to Port St. Joe, Florida to visit with our nephew Mark and his wife Leslie. Their little vacation home in Port St. Joe is set up perfectly no TV, no WIFI,  just conversation. Port St. Joe is a sleepy little town with the distinctive title of original capital city of the State of Florida. Leslie grew up there. Mark and his family took us to a raw bar. I later found out this is another name for a sea food restaurant.

As I conversed with Mark it struck me that he is very much like his father, my brother. In addition to resembling his father physically, his mannerisms, his focus, his jesters, I felt like I was talking to a younger version of my brother. I have not seen Mark since Mom’s funeral and we did not talk at length at the funeral.

Cheryl came flooding back into my mind. I looked around and in my head she told me that if she could have been there she would have sat near Leslie and the kids to talk and catch up. Family and conversation is very important to her. Sitting with Mark, my sister Joyce and his family, I realized how much I was missing Cheryl. She would have enjoyed this trip very much. And the additional aspect of lived history would have had her telling about this trip over many dinner conversations into the future.

The next day we continued on to visit with Mark’s mother, my sister-in-law, Judy. My brother left this Earth in May of 2020. Sadly, because of the COVID travel restrictions, Cheryl’s inability to travel easily and other factors, we were unable to attend services for my brother Bill. Judy showed Joyce and me a wonderful memory book put together by the funeral services company as well as the program for Bill’s celebration of life. I picked up the book and looking through it had to catch myself as I wanted to turn and show it to Cheryl. (I was missing Cheryl again.)

This was perfect; family, history, hiking, a beach nearby, Judy’s beautiful house at the end.

When I got home in the early evening my son Scott picked me up at the airport. As we rode along my only thought was to drive over and visit Cheryl. She was in bed already so I kissed her goodnight and returned home to eat something and consider various aspects of the trip, my relationship to my own family and enjoy sleeping in my own bed.

Carpe the road trip Diem.

Dear Cheryl,

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I am thinking about you this morning as I do every morning.

Earlier I listened to and old U2 song – With or Without You – And I realized that these words from this song have a very different meaning to me than the original lyricist meant. I cannot live with you physically. It is simply more than I can handle day to day. Between your Parkinson and the associated memory and dementia, it is overwhelming for me to take care for you by myself. This breaks my heart.

And yet, in my heart I cannot live without you constantly in my thoughts. Often in the morning when I hear some song or part of a song I think of a time when we were younger and this song was on the radio or the group was very popular and what we were doing in our lives. Some of those memories are vague with little flashes of pictures in my mind. The dream ends and I am in our home, alone, without you. I become sad again.

Songs and particular lines from songs often evoke an emotional (teary) response from my heart. Loving you and living without you is a very unsatisfactory feeling.

With you or without you – I miss you,

Paul

Dear Cheryl,

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Dear Cheryl,

You were sleeping today when I came to visit. Sleeping so very soundly that I did not want to disturb you. I kissed you on the cheek like I usually do to tease you awake. I know that you do not like me to kiss you on the ear. You did not even stir, not one bit.

I sat in the rocker for a little bit to watch you breathe.

After a few more minutes I left you to rest and came home. As I was driving home I thought to write this letter to you. I have been listening to a collection of songs from Spotify entitled – Songs to Sing in the Shower. Pulling into the garage LeAnn Rimes started singing, “You Can’t Fight the Moonlight”. This line – “There’s no escaping love; Once the gentle breeze; Weaves its spell upon your heart” – stuck with me.

I suddenly realized how much I missed seeing you today. The past couple days you were alert and we were able to sit and hold hands quietly. Yesterday you put your head on my shoulder and we sat that way for awhile. I enjoyed that quiet time with you.

I think that touching you is more important to me than I admit to myself.

Sleep well and rest. I will see you tomorrow.

I love you,

Paul

Catfish Friday

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Many years ago when I was still working our company had installed a machine in a manufacturing company in Glasgow Kentucky. If it was necessary to visit this customer I would try to steer the meeting to Friday because it was Catfish Friday at Annie’s Kitchen in Glasgow. That memory came to me today when I ordered the catfish in the Drake cafeteria for lunch today.

I do not remember when I was last to Annie’s but it has been quite awhile. The fish at the cafeteria was pretty good but the fish at Annie’s place was exquisite.  I do not eat a lot of fish. I live in Ohio.

Lent is upon us and many churches, restaurants and volunteer firehouses have fish fries during lent. For many years that was our Friday(s) in Lent. Go to the fish fry and visit with friends and be Catholic like the old days when we were children for a time.

The pandemic pandemonium killed that all off for a time. And afterward Cheryl was less and less able to navigate the cafeteria and the commotion.

I miss that. Today I had fried catfish for lunch. (Okra and cornbread, too.)

Carpe Diem

When I Visit Cheryl

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When I visit Cheryl which happens everyday I notice things. Some of these are after I return home. I am not so concerned about where I put my shoes after I take them off for example. When Cheryl was here with me I was constantly concerned with trip hazards lying about in our condo. Occasionally we would argue about things like doormats and trow rugs, all of which I had removed from the condo over time as her ability to move and walk and balance became worse.

I notice how the staff interacts with the residents. They are generally kind and attentive. They are, I imagine, acutely aware of their own staffing levels.

I notice how the residents interact with the staff. Helen, another resident in the Harbor with Cheryl, is awake and alert and talkative today. Last night the Super Bowl went into overtime. It was not won until just before 11 PM, so, I imagine that several maybe most of the staff sat up and watched it until the end like I did. The difference being that I did not have to get up at 5 AM to make the 6:30 AM staff meeting. Some of the staff have that combination of Monday morning sleepy grumpy going on. I get that. I used to be a service/engineering manager. Mondays were often unnecessarily busy while we picked up all the stuff that fell on the floor over the weekend.

I notice the level of staffing. It is less so on the weekends as one might expect it to be. If there is one single area that I could suggest could be improved it would be weekend staffing. The world in general revolves around folks not working weekends without some sort of extra incentive which is often money. Rewarding altruism and empathetic caring for folks who cannot care for themselves is hard work for the administration and work life balance is strained when the work and life are similar. Conjuring useful rewards for weekend work like appealing to their sense of altruism is probably tough.

I notice the changes when the shift ends. The next group comes in. It is generally a smooth transition.

I hear the little discussions between the staff – what’s important to them.

I also find that if I am not the full time care partner I was when Cheryl was home with me I am able to have opinions about how others do the same task. I wonder about how I might do it differently. I keep those thoughts to myself. Juggling the needs of a dozen people at different stages of Alzheimer’s, Lewy body, Parkinson’s and other forms of dementia is more complicated than I had to deal with at home. My personal dilemma was remaining kind and thoughtful with lack of sleep but a lot of love. Love is sometimes hard to find if you are Mr. Lack-of-sleep-cranky-pants.

All of this wandered though my thoughts today as I visited with Cheryl and sat with her while she dozed in her chair. She was slightly awake but sitting with her eyes closed. She was uninterested in having company. I just held her hand for a bit and it seemed like she relaxed and fell into a nap. I miss her daily company.

Carpe Diem. ( Carpe Somnum when it is time.)

I Remember

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Cheryl and I met at a picnic. It was a blue moon in August of 1966 specifically, but that’s not really the story. The story is what we have been together since.

High school friends of mine put together a picnic with friends of hers. Cheryl went because they invited her. I went because my friends invited me.

I found myself sitting alongside of her at a picnic table in a dark picnic area in Winton Woods. Both of us were wondering how these guys were going to get the hot dogs and stuff off of the grill when they hadn’t brought any tools. So I kind of jumped into the breach to fix the problem and scooped the hot dogs up with a couple of paper plates. Cheryl later told me that she thought that action was really clever.

But that is not the important thing that I wanted to tell you about that night. Our meeting was a totally random event in both of our lives then and since that night (58 years ago) we have been together.

It’s sort of amazing when you think about it. I mean in high school, of course when she went back to ICA in Indiana, I dated a couple of other girls, but I didn’t really get serious or even interested in anybody else except for her. Four years almost to the day after we met on that picnic, we got married. I finished up school at Miami. We had kids. She supported me at Miami. I supported her at U. C. The kids grew up. We supported them and they moved out. We had a few years in there when we sort of enjoyed (you know) empty nesting, a few trips, just enjoying life and living. We had two fairly well paying careers and enjoyed a little bit of travel and some other things like that. It’s been a really good life. It’s been a really good life and she is gone mentally and I don’t know where to put that. I do not know where to put that in my heart. I don’t know where to put that in my head. I don’t know what to do about that period. I struggle with that pretty much every day.

She is physically still here but mentally not so much in the last few weeks. Probably not very far from now in a few weeks she will physically be gone, too.

I just don’t know how to think about all this. I ponder this all the time.

I do not know what is next but I do so wish there was a manual. She is still here, but she is not here.

At first it made me feel a little bit guilty, moving her to memory care but I’ve come to realize that if she was still home with me, I would really not have a good handle on being able to help her and keep her clean and and feed her and all those other things that go along with the situation that she’s in at Bridgeway Pointe.

I don’t have guilt feelings anymore. I tell myself this but maybe those feelings are still with me. At first I had sort of thought that it felt like I was giving up or giving in or throwing our life away or whatever you want to say. I but I don’t really quite know how to express that emotion, but we have lived together for so long. It did not and still does not feel right. Perhaps it never will.

And it’s so hard to see her go. I just don’t know what to do about it. I just don’t know what to do about my emotions. I can’t really put them in my pocket. I mean, I can for a while but then they just sort of spontaneously come out every now and then. I don’t worry about that. I just sort of stop for a minute when I get all choked up and I just simply can’t talk, but I’m getting better at it passing by that that deep sense of loss. I don’t know how else to say that. It is just a really deep deep sense of loss.

I love her and she will always be part of me. I have and we have lots and lots of good memories. I am not sure that she has any memory, sometimes it’s hard to tell.

It is very hard to tell where and what she remembers especially towards the end of this past year. She seemed to regress more and more into her childhood. And I don’t know how else to say that. In the middle of the night when I would get up and go to the bathroom, she would wake up a little bit and say, “Jan where are you going?” Sometimes she would say, “Dan?” (you know? )

These past few years have been a trial. I will not remember her this way.

I will remember the trips to the Cincinnatian Hotel.

I will remember Sunday matinees at the Playhouse in the Park.

I will remember the cruise trips.

I will remember the hiking trips in various parks and the looks on the boy scouts’ faces when we encountered each other five miles from the trail head in Green Bow State Park in Kentucky. And how great lunch tasted when we got back to the lodge after our hike.

I will remember pancakes with fresh maple syrup in the morning looking for the ladies room in Hocking Hills.

I will remember the joy on her face when she graduated college.

I will remember the tired joy on her face after the birth of each child.

I will remember the trips to Myrtle Beach and during those to Charleston.

I will remember a Christmas Eve a long time ago when she insisted that I open her gift to me and all I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep. She had made me a shirt. She was a wonderful seamstress and proud of it.

I will remember the trips with friends to Door County and the Grand Canyon.

I will remember walking to the neighborhood pub after work to enjoy dinner she did not cook and a glass of wine.

I will remember her herding the kids to church on Sunday morning.

I will remember cold weekend mornings alongside soccer fields.

I will remember her excitement when Anna announced that our first grandchild was coming.

I will remember how she cared for me and our family through life.

I will remember many things but I will not dwell on the last few weeks of her time here.

I love you Cheryl. You will always be with me. I carry your heart in my heart. I will remember your smile.

Parkinson’s disease sucks. (Today I do not feel much like carpe-ing the damn diem.) She is slipping from me and I feel sad.

Ice Cream

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This morning my thoughts turned to ice cream. Cheryl and I often went out for ice cream in the evening. In two smaller suburbs there was a Dairy Queen in one – she likes Oreo Blizzards – and Aglemessis Bros. which is a small local ice cream and confectionery. She likes black raspberry chocolate chip.

There is a very good story about the second store. many years ago when Cheryl was still working one of her coworkers would have what she referred to as “Grandma’s Camp”. She invited the grandchildren to stay with her for a week in the summer individually so that she could get to know each child without the distraction of the others and the bigger family around that would be there during big family gatherings. Cheryl decided that this was a good, bordering on great idea.

Audrey, Anna’s third child, stayed with us during this episode of our life adventure when she was about seven years. I am unsure exactly how old she was but it suffices to say she was a young child. She was a very early reader which became apparent when I took her with me to visit my mother at the independent living situation she was staying in to help organize her meds for another week. Audrey read some of the names of the medications and was asking me what various ones were for. Mom took a bunch of stuff.

Afterward I took her to Aglemessis Bros. for ice cream. This store has an old fashioned soda fountain style counter in it that you can sit at and watch the folks (soda jerks) dish up the ice cream and sodas. We sat there. There is a big board on the wall listing all of the flavors and other less important information about price. There is also a menu of sundaes and other goodies in addition to a display case for various chocolate delights and chunky chocolate all sold buy the pound. It is a chocoholic addict’s downfall. Audrey looked up at the board and said to me, ” Grampaw, they have chocolate chocolate chip!” I responded yes they do and you can probably get hot fudge on top if you want that also. I did not know at the time that my granddaughter was a chocolate fan like me. (It makes me smile inside when I recall this experience.)

I think she got chocolate sauce on her two scoops of double chocolate chip ice cream as did I and we sat with satisfaction as we ate and watched the activity behind the counter. I suppose that is why I particularly enjoyed bringing Cheryl to the Aglemessis store. It always reminds me of this story. I think tomorrow perhaps I will see if I can bring Cheryl some black raspberry chocolate chip ice cream from there.

From a precocious, chocolate loving, early reading, intelligent young girl to a beautiful young woman, when I think of Cheryl and I going to Aglemessis Bros. for ice cream, I think of Audrey and chocolate chocolate chip.

Carpe Diem.

Poetry and Meaning

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This poem by Shel Silverstein is from an anthology of poems and cartoons published by him with the same name in the 1970s. I do not remember how we got it but I have several books of poetry. Poetry can tell a story, elicit emotion, evoke a memory or simply make one think.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/shel_silverstein/poems/14836

Hauntingly to me it is a metaphor for life. I do not know where the smoke blows black and the dark street winds but every life has rough spots. Childhood is full of hope and dreams and looking towards a bright future free from cares.

But growth and maturity catches us and distracts us from ourselves. It adds fear, anxiety and worries about things over which we have no control.

Looking back from the end of the sidewalk one sees with great clarity the chalk marks where direction was changed forever.

Or Shel may have been writing with something totally different in mind.

Carpe Diem.

Dance Competition

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A small gymnasium with loud music and time to wait, the pre-dance show is boring. I am glad that I have a book. I am writing facetious nonsense.There is no pre-dance show. It is loud music, unnecessarily so, in a small gymnasium.

The girls on all the teams are enthusiastic and passionate about their routines. As a biased grandfather watching these kids perform I think my granddaughter did the best but two concepts interfere with that assessment, familial relationship and ignorance of the judgment criteria. A rubric would be helpful with the latter. There is no help for the former.

I did enjoy the afternoon with my daughter’s family. Earlier in the day Cheryl had been sleeping soundly in her recliner. I sat with her for a time. She did stir when I talked to her. She did not stir when I kissed her cheek. She did not stir when pulled the blanket from beneath her head and covered her with it. She did not stir when I kissed her good-bye and left to have some lunch before the ride to the competition.

Jazz Dance

Cheryl was safe and taken care of. I went to watch the dancers without concerns for her wellbeing. I thought about how she would have liked to have been there. I made a video to show her later.

Cheer

Carpet Diem

January 6th and End of Life

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Yesterday I put away the few Christmas decorations that I had spotted around. The very last thing was the door decoration that I had carried over to Cheryl at the Harbor. Later I realized I was a day early. Cheryl always did that on January 6th or the weekend afterward. I left a little carved camel and a note “Off to find the star…” in the place where I had set up a small creche that had been my mother’s.

I went out to retrieve the snail mail to today and noticed my note to mostly myself but able to be viewed by my neighbors. In the mail was an envelope from my sister that contained the signature page of her advance directive document should someone need to speak up for her at the end of her life. She has saddled that task on her lifelong friend Phyllis. I am her first alternate.

I visited Cheryl earlier today. She was sleeping very soundly so after sitting with her for a bit and sending her picture to her brothers and sisters, I kissed her good-bye. She did not stir so I left to find lunch at home.

Off to find the star… is a metaphor to me for life and where Cheryl and I are. I am very glad that she is well cared for at all hours of the day and night. Once in awhile I have this overwhelming sadness and grief that sneaks up on me at odd times. This morning it was during the simple activity of making the bed. It is funny how certain chores are taken over by various participants in a loving marriage. Cheryl always did this until a few years ago. Even a few weeks ago as I was making the bed I might be talking to her and encouraging her to select a certain shirt or “why don’t you wear your red jeans today?” Even though I was doing the bed, we would banter back and forth.

I miss that. The star dims with time.

My granddaughter is participating in a dance competition today. Soon my daughter will pick me up to go with her to watch the competition. Cheryl is safe and calm and perhaps asleep. I am off to find the star by myself.

Carpe Diem.