Nice and Easy Does It

“Oh there you are Netti!” Mom exclaimed as she opened one eye.  She was seated on a floral chaise, one arm resting on a footstool turned armrest placed nearby.  That had become her favorite piece of furniture as of late, but never used the stool to prop up her feet.

Her use of “Netti” threw me off, reminded me of those years when I would call from Oregon or Cincinnati, and she would answer the phone, “Oh Netti, I knew it was you.” She sat straight up and immediately her eyes were drawn to my feet, in particular, my blue running shoes.  They were a neon blue – think North Carolina with a little Oregon swag to them.

“Hey, what are you doing with those blue shoes?” She questioned me.  I shrugged.  “They’re my running shoes Mom, I was a runner, ran track, jumping over hurdles, remember all those times I fell…”  A part of her connected to that time, as a smile crossed her face in the same instant as the sun shone through the window.

“All those times I fell.”  We chuckled together on that one.

“C'mon lets get up and go walk around,” I told her.  She sighed, her trademark for quit telling me what to do, but I will probably listen to you anyhow.

We wandered from her hallway out into the main gathering space.  Jerry and Richard were actively engaging in a conversation that went like this - Jerry: "Well, if you at run this, does not you tell look back," and Richard mumbling over Jerry, "Most people know how to work airplanes, they make them ride...” But truly, the men appeared to be battling it out in Congress over the budget.

Mom continued to point out one of the caregivers Q., who had rolled her hair into a bun.  Mom exclaimed, “Well look at that, she thinks she is all high and mighty, with her thing up like that.” It took some doing, but I convinced Mom all the young girls were wearing buns, and reminded her it was once her style too, perhaps not that I witnessed, but a style in her day for sure.

These moments I had catalogued before, but I called them B.D. moments, before Dad’s death. The occurrences were not only regular, but entertaining, as well as challenging, because Mom was thinking, and was stating aloud what it was she was thinking. She too was engaged.  But the circumstances of her life dictated she would fall into a state of grief that was difficult to understand and explain to someone who had Alzheimer's, and even more onerous to explain to one who regularly pushed her own emotions below the surface for the sake of others.

And so she progressed through his death, her moves, the addition and removal of medications, the holidays.  The rate of suicides and deaths among those who experienced grief always rose post holiday season.  I held my breath.

We celebrated her birthday in January at a restaurant where she mistook the waiter, dressed head to toe in black, for a priest, then laughed when Mark suggested, the waiter was there to serve us bread and wine.

Mom came to my house to celebrate Mardi Gras, sans all the kids but one, with our tradition of gumbo, muffuletta and king cake.  Mom even picked the cake piece with the baby in it, and we will hold her to buying the cake for next year. 

She followed along in conversations with my in-laws, and they remarked, how much mom was involved, interested in the flow.

Grief comes in waves for all of us, including those with Alzheimer's.  Mom could still be stuck in an angry place, but her surroundings have offered her a change of pace, constant social contact and a weekly hair appointment, seriously, her hair was always important. And as such, constant attention to her needs and responding to her want of hugs have also helped.

These are small moments between the long hours when loving someone with Alzheimer's. I am not there to care for her, but even the hour or two I spend when visiting her or she with me, brings a heightened awareness that her awareness could all be gone again, so easily, and not even with her death, but with her disease.

On our walk, we came across a chaplain who visited every other week, to meet with residents, and hold a service of sorts in the afternoon, following lunch when the residents were more alert.

“I love your having your Mom with us.” 

I didn't know who he was, or why he had spent time with Mom.

“I'm a chaplain,” he explained, telling me about his service and how Mom loves to sing church songs.  “Oh yes,” I responded.  “And Frank Sinatra.”

He turned to Mom,  “So you love Frank?”

She grinned ear to ear.  “She worships at the altar of the Good Lord and Ole Blue Eyes,”  I noted, then left him to finish his meeting and gently tugged Mom away.

We sat ourselves outside of Boathouse Cove where Mom loved the white wicker furniture in that courtyard, either reminding her of the glamour of Cape Cod, or the cleanliness with which the bright furniture shone.

We positioned ourselves opposite of each other. I had let her hold my music player, listening to Sinatra. She sang along, “Nice and Easy does it…” She forgot to repeat the phrase several times and immediately added, “every time.”

She rose to dance with me then sat down sighing, tired again.  I put the earbuds in her ear, so she could listen more clearly to the music.

“Mom which song is it?” I asked.

She answered, “Come fly with me..,.” then added, “with your blue shoes on....”  She threw her head back to laugh and laugh and laugh.  So hard she could have slid off the plastic cushion on the chair.

“Mom, you are making no sense.”

Pleased even more so, she answered, “Oh, I know.”

And I believed her.

She rose up to wander towards the health office, where the nurses met, and poked her head in, “Umm. Hi, what's going on here?”  In the same tone she used to check in on kids when we were younger.

This scene was repeated often in the short time I was there.  She was curious, she was amused, she had a life outside of anything I knew of, including the singing service, and teasing the girls who were wearing buns in their hair.

When I was younger, I recall my parents muddling through marital, financial and parental struggles. When I didn't want my parents to consume their energies on my doings, I would just tell my mom, “Don't worry about it.”

In some ways, I removed from her the ability to be my mother, for me to be her daughter. Even these past many months, I had felt the parental one, overseeing her care.

But for the first time in two or three years, I wasn’t worried about “it”.  I felt refreshed to simply be her daughter, to be Netti, and bask in the beauty that was my mom.

Two Sacraments

Dear Girl Afraid of Water

Why did you scream

when your mother tossed you

in the bath, washed your hair

over plastic tubs?

Did you think

she would let you drown?

Why did you yell,

poolside at the Y,

fearful of jumping

where others were already

buoyed by their skill?

Was it senseless to think

you could float

because only Jesus did,

and you always questioned Him?

And when you took to water

gills and fins grown,

did you call out,

those cool summer dawns

at the public pool?

Did your mother watch, from steel fence

through endless laps

of crawl, breast, back and side,

inflated jeans and flannel shirts?

Did you squeal treading in the deep?

And in Oregon, when rain and wind

poured violently into the sea,

were you afraid

of what would churn forth?

Was it a baptism you felt

over and again,

a chance to come clean

of all your sins – living and dead?

2/21/13

Reconciliation

When God puts you in timeout,

it is not punishment –

to be sent

to the corner of HIs tent.

No frown forms across

His countenance,

expecting confession from the deep,

but rather

an acknowledgment –

You are there

to be forgiven

if only you embrace

this dusty corner created.

There is no stool, no wall,

no pock marks filled with putty

from toasters sailing wide.

Instead tent sides billow

with breeze and light.

He has put away

the wooden spoon, the belt,

soap for your mouth.

You will not be silenced,

nor will silence be judged.

In this bend

He has set aside

lightning, plagues, and floods,

removed bitterness and anger,

and the knife from your back.

He has set forth knowledge

flowing freely as flaps on the tent –

how to forgive yourself.

2/27/2012

Pilgrim Souls at 1419

The two of us paused for a long while in the kitchen, marveling at the marble backsplash.   We hadn’t been alone in that space, just the two, in the two years we had undertaken the venture of reconstructing this beauty. We had always been accompanied by builders, plumbers, guests, and yes, ghosts.

Hungry and ready to try out a new restaurant only four doors down, I finally broke the overwhelming silence. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” I shouted, wanting to put my voice in this space.

The home had been built in the 1870s, and consisted of three floors plus a basement. Italianate in design, it boasted no plumbing, electric, windows or stair rails, only wood floors in disrepair, a newspaper report on natural disasters from 1980s hanging in the basement, and a sprinkle of imagination and heart.

The bones of the home had been visible from the beginning. But new windows now let in new light. A kitchen had been built from the ground up. Someone (me, not servants) would cook in here again.  Children would sleep in the upstairs quarters.  A lively game of chess might break out in the front room - we are still pondering its name. Parlor? Salon?

Whereas once a family of seven, husband, wife, three daughters, two sons, occupied this home, when the move is complete, this house will be empty in the traditional sense of the word “nest”.

To the consternation of our builder and possibly the flooring crew, we chose to have the hardwood floors refinished. The floors are pine, and after staining, have a dark red hue to them.  There are plenty of gauges, scrapes, scratches, each that could tell a story.  We wanted to let the house breathe through these openings, a way of letting life back in.

And too, the builders were sure to shake their heads at the wallpaper remains that I asked them to preserve. They did so placing Hefty bags and painters tape over the paper through many months of restoration. Then one day, the bags were removed, the wallpaper remnants appeared within dark rustic frames, under looking glass. Layers of existence preserved next to the outlet for cable TV.

A fireplace surround was rescued, a limestone hearth held on fast too.  A newel post found in a scrap heap became the cornerstone for the stairs, a way of anchoring the past. A handrail was handcrafted with precision and love.  Plaster molding was meticulously restored, inches at a time.  In two rooms, the rear entry and my office, we kept brick exposed.  We had been counseled that, the original owner held a place in society and would not have left brick exposed. Laying bare the brick was our way allowing others who had called this home to also have their position duly noted.

A debate raged on for months about painting the exterior brick and limestone details.  No one was convinced one way or the other.  But painting proved to be the fresh coat this lady needed.  The highlight of the ornate limestone doorway is the face of the man who I have named Oscar, after one of the children who first lived there.  Red and white diamond shaped marble tiles were methodically removed from the front stoop.  I had watched the contractor number and remove each piece, to be locked away, then cleaned and placed on the stoop again, sidled up next to scraps of carrarra marble tile.

There is light everywhere now, not just where we could once shine our flashlight and imagine. But Thomas Edison and God light, mixing in to create this wondrous piece of work we will call home.

I say too much now, giving away the character of home, when one must truly experience it with us, through our eyes, our pictures from two years ago, taken before paint replaced must as the predominant smell.

At a recent appointment, someone who had grown accustomed to hearing my stories about OTR and its resurgence called me a travel agent for OTR.   Later in the day, a poem I found and spent my afternoon walk trying to memorize speaks of the “pilgrim soul” (WB Yeats – When You Are Old).

As travel agents, of course, we want to share with others the potential that living in the city has to offer, or for that matter, experiencing the city. Not everyone has to live in it. 

I rather like the Yeats comparison better.  We have set off for a new shore with this undertaking and will certainly find ourselves navigating new waters while our children are colonizing other worlds. Only the two of us know the moments that came before this, the ones that spurred us forward, the ones that will not grace our doorstep but through memory.

And only the two of us, having captained this vessel, can foresee that here, we will also have many moments of what Yeats penned as glad grace.

Valentine’s Day, 2013.

Stages - A Triology

So good to be writing again.  Life comes to us in stages, as do poems.

What I Hear

Bedside with you in Hospice,

I reach into my bag

retrieve stale pretzels, dog-eared notes,

an essay about you, the gardener.

Three pages long,

I am almost through.

You are blinking, groaning.

Children interrupt.

How much of my writing

did you ever read?

Children now bedside too,

You lift up your hand.

Do you want me to stop?

You mumble. I wrinkle

my forehead, unable to discern.

Children relay, He says,

I love you.

A blanket I love you

encompassing me now,

warmth for my journey.

You always wanted to be

the subject of my words.

And when words

do not turn into writing,

I hear

your whispered plea -

to go on,

go on.

July, 2012

Divergence

Driving through West Virginia,

the Appalachian Trail miles from sight.

I am blinded by blue skies,

do not see mountains or rest stops.

I only see you,

or your side,

while I sat between

you and Mom, making trips

through ranges and rain.

Howard Johnson's and Days Inn

now in my rear view mirror,

as are you.

I miss the glint of sun

shining off your watch as the dawn

struck and woke us all,

the bitter scent of aftershave,

your Cuban-dark arms,

Mom frantic over the wrong turn,

reading the Triptik,

hieroglyphics learned.

Necco wafers had long gone stale,

though you kept them

like a treasure trove.

Some slept, I followed the map,

needed a path,

the one you were driving.

Robert Frost forgive me, for the road less traveled

is not the one I want to be on.

But I am. Long stretches,

interspersed by tunnels, and suffocating silence.

I’m no expert map reader

but isn't it better to be lost?

Isn't that why you drove, to separate

from the bickering, the snoring, and chewing,

the curlers, the snacks, the books?

Isn't better to know who you are, than where?

August, 2012

 

Running Errands

The girl in me sits by your side.

The road is bumpy.

You curse county commissioners

up and down Tower Boulevard.

We stop in order – shoe store, post office,

Grandpa’s on Chris Avenue, hoping for cannolis.

At last

we arrive at Willow Hardware.

You park the Surburban -

a car rising higher than feet can touch.

I tumble out

and swing the doors to Willow wide open.

You follow me.

But then

we drift

I gravitate towards a buzzing,

the sweet scent of sawdust my nectar.

Someone is building something.

You turn towards the garden supplies, stepping

over green rubber hose.

You are seeking the shelf full

of twine, sentries wrapped in cardboard rolls.

You were raising something too.

The tomatoes, their stalks needed

staking and prodding,

a firm grip to grow

and birth

juicy bulbous fruit.

On our errands, we were building something –

What was it – a treasure chest for your wisdom,

a box to capture the girl in me,

or being of like hearts,

an understanding between us two?

February, 2013