Dementia: Moments of Grace

For those in my age category of slightly over 60, losing your parents is something you’re probably familiar with. My family just passed our second Christmas without my folks.

Shortly after my mom died of cancer last year just before the holidays, my father, a frail but otherwise healthy eighty-five year old, simply came undone. He couldn’t tie his shoes. He didn’t remember if he’d eaten lunch that day or not. He’d spend long moments in silent conversation with his brother who had died years prior.

It was my siblings’ and my job to find whatever version of reality in which he currently existed and join him there. Phone calls and visits would often end in tears (ours) and placid detachment (his).

There were moments of tiny miracles, periods of grace, a lifting of the fog:

“Hello, Dad? It’s Jody.”

“Oh? Well, how are you?”

I pause, not falling for the new trick. Anyone else might be suckered into continuing the conversation. He used to compensate for his hearing loss by nodding and smiling. People actually thought he had heard and agreed with them.

“Dad, do know who this is?”

“Uh, I believe you said…”

“It’s your eldest, Jody, your daughter, in California,” I reel off the qualifiers that might jog what’s left of his precarious memory. Swiss cheese, his doctor explained. Some things fall right on through; some things stick. I’ve fallen through this time. My heart hurts though I’ve learned not to take it personally.

“My daughter?” the holes reduce to colander size.

“Yep. Jody.”

“Oh, well Jody, how are you sweetie? What are you up to today?”

There he is; there’s my Dad. I breathe fully for the first time in minutes. Tears puddle behind my eyes. If I were there, we’d both be crying now, he in frustration with the fathomless fog that separates him from his family, and me in the sweet agony of capturing fleeting moments of my father.

We talk a while about family, work, those things of the moment. Then I refer back to the past where the fluidity of his mind is more able to find a rock on which to anchor. I remind him of a time when I was eight years old and I won a game chest for writing the best essay in the ‘My Pops Is Tops’ category of a contest sponsored by a local magazine. My Dad has always been my hero. I remind him of this and hear his soft chuckle.

“If there’s a bright side to all this,” he said as we were winding up the conversation, “it’s that I get to discover over and over again that I have a daughter who loves me.” A tear slid down my cheek. “It’s like unwrapping the best Christmas present, without having to wait until—when is it that we have Christmas?”

“December, Dad,” I smile.

“I knew that. I was just testing you. Love you, honey. Call again soon. Ten, fifteen minutes should do,” he chuckled.

“Love you, Dad. Bye.”

This memory is in honor of my Dad who died just short of his 86th birthday.

On Mirrors and Metaphors

In a recent Sunday talk at the Center for Spiritual Living where I recharge my spiritual battery every week, Rev. Edward Viljoen retold a story from Robert Fulghum that used the metaphor of the mirror to explore life’s purpose. Ever watchful for stories that will fit under my umbrella of creativity, my eye is always snagged by a good metaphor. I couldn’t find a little round hand mirror, so the picture above is the mirrored coat tree in my living room. You get the idea—it reflects light into dark places. May your light shine.

A Greek philosopher and teacher ended a lecture asking, “Are there any questions? In the audience was Robert Fulghum who asked, “Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?”

Fulghum relates: “The usual laughter followed, and people started to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was. ‘I will answer your question,’ he said. Then taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into it and brought out a very small, round mirror, about the size of a quarter. Then he said, ‘When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and e lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found several broken pieces of a mirror from a wrecked German motorcycle. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone, I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would not shine – in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

I kept this little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light – truth, understanding, knowledge – is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.’

‘I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of this world – into the black places in the hearts of men – and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.’ “And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my hands folded on the desk.”

http://www.robertfulghum.com/ Robert Fulghum’s Official Website

The Tin Man

My sister Sus, who lives in Connecticut, meets the most remarkable people. In childhood, as her older sister, I taught her to share; so I benefit from her being out there in the world. Let me introduce you to Charlie Lucas, otherwise known as the Tin Man. www.tinmancharlielucas.com.

Charlie is known in the Outsider Art world. He takes little bits of not very much that he finds here and there and creates amazing works of art that reflect his heritage and his unique perspective on life. He’s a soft-spoken southern sweetheart with an unassuming manner that belies his brilliance. Please take a moment to check out his website (don’t forget the video tours). It will make you smile.

If you like the website, sister Sus designed it. She can be reached at skspight@gmail.com.

A Garlic Press and a Book of Stamps

Who knew that a phone conversation with my daughter regarding Christmas plans would result in a moment of clarity about the importance of the little things in life? It goes like this:

“So, Mom, is there anything special I can get you for Christmas this year?” Her voice has that here we go again edge to it.

“You know, I’d love a garlic press and a book of stamps,” I answer, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Oh, Mother! A garlic press isn’t something you ask for for Christmas. And stamps you buy every week.”

“But, honey, I want a garlic press. I want that more than anything!” I try in vain. “And I’m tired of having to buy stamps every week--that would be a great gift!”

She sighs. “Look,” she says as reasonably as her frustration allows, “suppose, just hypothetically, I could buy you a house. Would you still want a garlic press more than anything?”

“What kind of a house?” I ask. “I wouldn’t want just any old house, just any old where,” I add.

“You’re kidding, right? You could sell it if you didn’t like it.”

“Why would I want it if I was just going to sell it? That’s too much trouble.” I hear a low groan on the other end of the phone.

“Forget the house. What if I could buy you a car? Would you want a garlic press more than a car?” she continues to try and make her point.

“What kind of a car?” I ask.

“Mom! It doesn’t matter what kind of a car—a car is a car is a car.”

“There are some cars I wouldn’t drive—too big, you know?”

The conversation continues with my daughter’s voice becoming more strained by the minute.

“Honey, just send a card. Really, a card would be lovely.”

On Christmas morning, I retrieve a small package from under the tree with a tag on it that reads, ‘To Mom with love. Merry Christmas’. It rattles in its box. There is hope. I unwrap it slowly and savor the possibility.

I find a lovely box of assorted incense, and a beautifully wrapped bar of imported lavender soap, my favorite.

I call my daughter and thank her profusely for the wonderful Christmas gifts. She knows I have a penchant for incense and soap.

Then, I open my Day Planner and make a note on Saturday’s page. Errands: post office/stamps; grocery/garlic press.

Art You Can Sit On

Art You Can Sit On

I’ve always admired functional art, whether in clothing (kimonos, beautiful velvet scarves), dishware (hand-thrown one of a kind pottery), furniture (antiques with inlaid wood, beautiful hand-crafted curves and fitted corners), or jewelry (dangling beaded earrings). My city has a program called the ArtStart Bench Series where local artists, including children, beautify the downtown park benches. I had lunch the other day on Salvador Dali. Alfred Hitchcock was nearby. The fanciful musings of creative minds have made park bench sitting a gallery experience. Whether people watching, pigeon feeding, or just hanging out reading a book, you become part of the art. To get an up close and personal look at the benches above, click on the photos.

Quilt of Souls

Over the years in my day job as a psychotherapist, I’ve heard thousands of ‘stories’, none of which I can share outside of my consultation group; stories of courage, of heartbreak, of inconceivable suffering and loss, of creative growth and transformation, all of which have moved and molded me in some way.

Occasionally a client’s story will continue to haunt me. Even though the therapy has terminated, the images linger in my consciousness. As a way of processing the material while maintaining confidentiality, I turn to fiction, my favorite form of creativity.

Quilt of Souls is a story of five pages. I’m going to post it all in one sitting, so this will be a long one. The picture above is a painting that I found at a garage sale years ago (artist unknown). It speaks to me of many things, but perfectly illustrates this story. Welcome to my world:

Quilt of Souls

“Shhh, baby, baby, Momma’s sleepin’,” crooned seven-year-old Natalie to baby Landry wailing crocodile tears from the folds of her cradle. Natalie brushed back frizzy, dry hair like September wheat, from her own face and tucked it behind a delicate ear as she bent to free the infant from her swaddling. The back of her hand felt the wetness of soggy cradle sheet and her palm moistened with baby pee.

The room was hot and stuffy like the inside of an old trunk. There was not enough light to avoid tripping over the bottles strewn about the carpet, leaking rank fumes and amber liquid.

Landry continued howling like an alley cat in heat, her face red and swollen, her body reflecting the hot summer day. Natalie peeled off layers of blankets and threw them across the room in the general direction of the bucket. Baby pee didn’t smell so bad, she thought, as she laid Landry on a mostly clean towel. Not like the pee that puddles up under Momma. Dang, she wished she were at the swimming pool with Adele and Shank.

Out on the street she heard Butch, cussin’ out some poor bastard who happened to park in the curb space Butch considered his very own. She shook her head, the way a wet dog does, to try to get the sound of his voice out of her. When he had turned that shout on her, she had pulled so far inside she had near disappeared.

“It’s okay, Landry, I’m not gonna disappear on you,” she reassured the baby and herself. “You and me, someday we’re gonna get outta here. Open us up an ice cream store. Sell balloons and kites, too,” she sang the familiar mantra of better days ahead.

The baby, quiet now, stared up at her with eyes like saucers of fear and dread. Her tiny mouth sucked silently on her thumb as if it offered sustenance and protection from the evil so small a being should never have known.

An ambulance careened into the alley. The scream of the siren cut through the summer dusk scattering children playing Kick the Can, neighbors catching the first waft of cool evening breeze from rickety fire escapes, and stray cats rubbing against overflowing garbage pails. Bodies dispersed only to reconvene in morbid curiosity as the paramedics rushed up the steps of the brownstone.

“Stand back, folks,” Ed Fontaine used his bulk to clear a path through the onlookers to the open door of Number 11. He usually worked crowd control, leaving his partner La Rue quick access to triage. Ed never developed a stomach for being first on the scene.

“Oh, pee-euw!” said old Mrs. Hickey from across the hall. She reeled against her doorframe and covered her mouth and nose with the back of her liver-spotted hand.

From the far reaches of clouded consciousness, Cora heard Butch’s voice full of venom hiss, “Go on bitch, die. Do the world a favor.” Then, from nearer, “on my count, one, two, three...” and her body was shifted onto a hard surface. Then blackness all around.

In the ambulance, La Rue called in their ETA along with the alcohol and barbiturate overdose of 54 year old white female, Cora Buckley.

“Amen,” whispered Marvel as she finished her daily prayer for Jazelle’s soul and blew out the white candle on her altar. A slow drip of molten wax worked its way down the candle and melded into the silk scarf she used as an altar cloth.

The acidy sounds of The Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit blared from the shabby speakers balanced on a warped board that served as the dining table. They never ate at the table as Jazelle preferred a collection of TV trays that she’d decoupaged with pictures of bejeweled, toothy actors and actresses from her movie magazines.

Jazelle exhaled sweet, pungent smoke from her nose, leaving vapor trails in the air. “And the ones your mother gave you don’t do anything at all,” she sang in a sultry Grace Slick impersonation. Her big gold hoop earrings bobbled against her chin as she shook her head, flinging her sleek black hair over her shoulders and back again. Enough of all this gloom and doom, she was having herself a par-ty.

Baby Landry’s red-eyed gaze looked detached and far away through the cloud of smoke, but she was quiet now.

“Would you like to light a candle and pray for anyone, Natalie?” Marvel offered. “I’m praying for Cora. I figure she could use all the prayers she can get, locked up in that hospital.

“I don’t have much use for prayer,” Natalie said, keeping her voice even. “What kind of God would let this happen anyway?”

“Saint Marvel probably has an answer for that, don’t you Marvel?” asked Jazelle in a dreamy voice, swaying to the music in the middle of the room with the baby in her arms. The infant’s limbs hung limply and wobbled to the beat.

“God works in mysterious ways,” Marvel’s voice was full of quiet conviction. “I believe She’s working through us right now, to bring strength and hope to Cora,” she said.

Across town, in a dimly lit back room of the Psych. Ward at St. Boniface, Cora stirred in the muss of sheets, wet with sweat and tears. Her own stench made her nauseous.

“Damn, that was a stupid thing you did back there. You could’ve burned the whole place down with that lit cigarette that fell on the floor. What a cow,” Butch spared no mercy.

“Shut up! Shut up and go away. Leave me alone,” Cora managed to rasp out through a parched throat. Her scalp itched and the skin on her face burned. Every muscle felt as though it had been stretched taut then let go. She took the fear and despair she felt, loosened a brick in the wall of her emotional well, stuffed the feelings in, and tamped the brick back securely in place.

“You wouldn’t last a day without me, you idiot. Who the hell you think takes care of things when you’re shit-faced? I don’t know why I bother with the likes of you,” he harangued.

A young nurse with pale blonde hair pulled back in a long braid that swung as she crossed the room, scribbled notes in a manila chart and checked the white paper cup the pills came in to make sure it was empty. She made no eye contact, didn’t speak. Cora sensed that the woman was holding her breath.

“Could I get a drink--Cait?” she asked, noting the nurse’s name badge.

“Yeah,” whispered Butch, “just throw a liter of whiskey in the bag. Heh, heh. Cait,” he smirked just loud enough for Cora to hear, “not K-a-t-e, but C-a-i-t. Sheesh. Must be from California.”

Cora’s head was pounding. Cait Plunkett, LVN, answered in a voice that felt like Graham cracker crumbs in the bed. “Ice, you can have ice,” she said, looking at Cora’s chin. She turned abruptly and left the room.

“Flo Nightengale she ain’t,” muttered Butch.

“Leave me alone!” Cora shouted, pressing her temples and squinting against the pain.

“You don’t speak to me like that, woman.” Butch was on her like a junkyard dog. Before she knew what was happening, he had yanked her by the arm out of bed and onto the floor. She heard a soft thud on her way down as her head met the corner of the drawer that had been pulled out from the bedside table. Blood oozed down the front of her white hospital gown. Her vision blurred and a searing pain finally caught up with her.

A keening cry that Cora didn’t realize was her own, brought an attendant on the run, followed by Nurse Plunkett. Butch had vanished.

Back in the apartment, Natalie sat on the edge of the bed, rocking back and forth. “She’s not coming back, I know it,” she cried. She had used up all of her patience trying to calm Landry who had kept up a steady wail for the last hour. Her nerves were shot. She was scared.

“Oh, she’ll be just fine,” Jazelle patted her leg. “Have another brownie. You want more Coke?” she asked as she reached for a tube of lipstick on the nightstand. With a deft hand, she applied a layer of ice-pink over her lips, followed by another, and another. She flashed a butter- cream frosting smile at the mirror.

Natalie felt the mattress indent as Marvel curled up behind her, wrapped her arms loosely around her and whispered in her ear, “Pray with me.”

“Oh for heaven sake, Marvel, why don’t you pray that baby shuts up pretty soon or we’ll all be in the nut house!” Jazelle said.

As if plugged into an invisible battery, Landry launched into an even more vigorous outpouring of ear-splitting, raw emotion. Natalie sobbed quietly. Marvel began a “Hail Mary.” Jazelle reached for her nail polish.

In his own private world far away, Butch swore under his breath, “I’ll show you who is boss. Next time I just might kill you.”

An attendant wheeled Cora into an office on the second floor of the hospital. “Good morning, Cora. I’m Doctor Morgan Craul. You may call me Morgan. I’ll be your therapist for the next few weeks.”

“Okay,” Cora mustered. She couldn’t keep her mind focused. Why was she here?

“Do you know where you are, Cora?” Morgan asked. Her voice was calming. She seemed genuinely concerned. Cora nodded.

“Could you tell me where you are please,” Morgan was more specific this time. She looked into eyes that shifted like sand in the dunes. She knew that look.

“Damn, lady, if you don’t know, you’re in worse shape than I am.”

Morgan blinked at the deep voice, the hostile tone. She drew in a slow breath, settled back in her chair and said, “Hello, I’m Morgan. What may I call you?”

“You may call me a cab so I can get the hell outa here,” Butch answered. “She doesn’t need you, so why don’t you go do your do-gooding somewhere else, okay?” He leaned forward, hands braced on the seat of the couch, as if readying himself to lunge.

“Who else do you speak for?” Morgan asked. “May I speak to another?” She waited and watched the shift of energy, the carriage of the body, the melding of the eyes from one personality to another.

Unguarded tears ran from the eyes of the exhausted child who appeared before her.

“I can’t make her stop crying,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t know what to do,” she sighed, and pulled her legs up onto the couch, hugging them close to her body with her arms.

“How old are you, and what may I call you?” Morgan asked softly.

“Natalie. I’m seven. And I have to take care of baby Landry.”

“That’s a terribly big job for a seven-year old girl. Do you have any help?” Morgan prompted.

“Jazelle is supposed to be watching us. And Marvel.” Natalie blew her nose with the Kleenex Morgan handed her. “But they’re really not much help,” again, a jagged little sigh that sounded like a whimper.

“I’d like to be of help, if I could,” Morgan offered. “Do you suppose I could speak to Jazelle or Marvel? And, I’d like to talk to you again in a bit, if that would be okay.” Morgan wondered what trauma had left a seven-year old in charge of the system.

The gate was open. It was unusual to have so much revealed at the first session. She wondered if Cora had any idea.

Everything is Fair Game

I’m thinking back to my second earliest memory of crouching over a mud puddle in the dirt driveway—I must have been three at most. The rain had cleared, and the sun shone on this mini-pond of water where oil residue floated from the family’s old Chevrolet.

I distinctly remember trailing my pointer finger through the puddle rearranging the rainbow that danced and swirled on the surface of the water. If I tapped the surface gently, little ripples of color spread in concentric circles. In my memory, I was there for a long time (it could have been minutes in child-time), experimenting with different media—a piece of gravel dropped from standing up height, a leaf floated on top. To a child (and I’m hoping to some adults), the world is a big canvas and everything is fair game for art.

All these many years later, the surface of the water in my hot tub when the moon reflects there making beautiful kanji that shape shifts with the slightest movement fills me with the same child-like awe and wonder.

Cloud art is still a favorite pastime from childhood. Ever shifting, what may appear as a princess on a camel at one moment turns into a cat eating an ice cream cone the next. Do you see the salamander in the cloud picture above? Click on it to make it bigger.

Leaves that float along the edge of the creek in a pattern that suggests a story, textured plaster on ceilings and walls (what do you see in the white picture above?), the arrangement of moss on a tree, are all sources of art expressing itself if you take time to look.

The water-trickles on the glass door of my shower have become a favorite canvas. I stumbled on this accidentally. Reaching for the towel I’d tossed over the rim of the shower, I splashed water on the steamy door. The splashes trickled down in an odd pattern. As I watched mesmerized three little children took form. I used my little finger to fill in some detail and found to my delight they were holding hands dancing in a circle. Not being an artist (my sister got that gene), I wasn’t able to recreate the picture once I was out of the shower. But for a moment, serendipity and I created a sweet piece of art there in the shower stall.

If you let your mind be a playground, you’ll never be bored. Creativity is free, and you don’t need anyone else to play.