It’s not over, but it is better. The fever is gone. The body aches have subsided for the most part. The headache is much improved, although the full, foggy head is still around. I’m eating broccoli salad for breakfast. Now to get the coughing to subside.
I was already having some trouble with my asthma, warranting a visit with the pulmonologist week before last. I had a televisit with my primary care physician yesterday. We talked mainly about the anti-viral drug. It has several side effects that I don’t like. She prescribed it, and if the symptoms should suddenly worsen, I’ll take it later today. I feel like my body can deal with this mild case.
The pulmonologist had a few better ideas. Use the nebulizer. Use the rescue inhaler. Lie on my belly for 30 minutes several times during the day. Evidently, that helps the lung tissue on the back. Huh. And then she told me to take some Vitamin D, some zinc, and Vitamin C. Increase the aspirin dosage to 325.
I think about all those people who had a real case of this cruel virus, so bad that millions died. I’m in the compromised bunch, and I am so thankful that President Trump spurred a quick development of the vaccine.
I’ll do everything they tell me to do. No one told me not to work, so it’s back to packing (and unpacking) a few more things.
We didn’t intend to move this soon after Mom’s passing, but then this house popped up and three other family members and our realtor saw it just about the time Dave and I saw it (they were searching) and everybody thought it was the perfect house for us!
It was quite the deal but we closed on September 19, and now we’re packing and moving. Packing and moving are now “quite the deal” since we are not taking everything and there is an estate sale in November. Staging the house for sale and preparing for an estate sale are two entirely different things that shouldn’t happen simultaneously.
But we’re known for some chaos.
We’ll tell you more later. There’s so much more to say.
I am healing in this most gracious Airbnb in Fernley, Nevada. My brother lives here, but we hadn’t seen each other in three years. I brought some of Mom’s ashes. Denny says they’ll be buried with him.
I’m not sure what kind of restoration I need, but I think I’m receiving it here. I haven’t wept yet, but I’ve wandered around in some sort of a brain fog for weeks, and sometimes I can see a black hole on the right side of my body. The hole travels with me when I’m walking.
Toni, my host, lives in this 1100-square-foot house on a tiny plot of land here in the desert, but she is a Master Gardener, so she has a front lawn and back and flowers everywhere. She offers her master bedroom as a rest for the weary, a quiet oasis where love abounds and healing is possible. She is a joyful provider of shortbread cookies, muffins, and so many goodies I can’t name them all. She runs a not-for-profit (a real one that makes no money) to feed about eighty seniors in this small town. She used to cast movies and videos with some big names, and I bet she was good at it, but she seems so happy with this life of hers that her grace is contagious.
The kitchen is a bright, cool place to be in the mornings. I open the back door for more light and (dry) air. The same little lizard suns on the privacy fence every day. There is a wide easement beyond that fence where wild horses and one donkey appear every morning. I haven’t seen them yet, but I’ve been watching. One time a few years ago, I saw some wild horses on the drive from Reno to Fernley.
So many familiar reminders have appeared since I arrived. I saw a woman in the grocery store with a huge windcatcher tattoo wrapped around her arm, just like one of the seven Mom attached to her walker handles. At Toni’s house, little things keep popping up: a small, decorative screen door like one I bought (and don’t know if I even still have it), the flour sack towels, a hat that is so much like one that Dad wore in the garden (it took my breath away), a bird print outdoor pillow that is the same fabric I have folded up in a drawer, the identical taupe checked fabric of my bedroom curtains on the dining chairs. The sunflowers.
Oh, there’s more. The one that made me laugh is the bubble gum machine. Jade and John had one. It was just like Toni’s except theirs was red. The story that goes with that one has to do with a certain twelve-year-old son renting out his Dad’s Playboys and stashing the money in the bottom of the bubble gum machine. I only found out about that about thirty years later.
My rental Nissan Rogue sports Tennessee plates. When I arrived at Toni’s house, she was watching the last Hallmark movie I watched with Mom. I didn’t notice the Tennessee license plates until Bev mentioned it. Toni later told me she thought, “Surely that woman did not drive here from Tennessee!” And in Wal-Mart in Fernley, NV, a shirt with Nashville on the front!
We’re having a family gathering tomorrow. Denny, Bev, their children Jim, Angie, Jena, and their grandchildren. I’m not sure who else might be invited, but it’s going to be a large occasion with Olive Garden food, music from the great-grands, and lots of stories! Jim’s wife and the greats will choose which pieces of Mom’s jewelry they would like from a large cache I brought with me, except for Angie–she gets Mom’s wedding rings. Bev got to choose last night.
Mom died peacefully in her sleep on June 24 after a one-month illness. Tomorrow marks one month out. It’s too soon to expect too much restoration on my part, but I feel something working.
I thought Toni said I should look for the horses between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. (Huh. Duh. Brain fog.) This morning, when I told her I was still watching for them, she said no, it’s between 4:00 and 6:00.
We don’t have wild horses in Tennessee. I’ve set an alarm for tomorrow at 4:00 a.m. It’s almost 11:00 a.m., and my little lizard is still sunning and running from one rail to the other, and I need to shower and get to my brother’s house.
But tomorrow morning, I’ll be waiting for wild horses.
They say, (the people who know),
the universe is mostly space.
An empty place.
Furthermore, these people who know
insist that the same is true
for me and you.
We are all, it seems,
just lots of nothing
between tiny bits of solid stuff,
just barely enough
to hold us all somewhat together and,
to the world, make it appear
that we are here.
But this one thing I think I know for sure:
a person needs a God to know
and room to grow.
And one place where there’s God and room,
from everything I’ve seen,
is the space between.
Larry Richardson
Physical Therapists came yesterday to get Mom to stand and transfer to the reclining chair. The goals for her care have been the same for several days now. They are written on the dry erase board.
Keep systolic blood pressure under 180.
Increase awareness.
Decrease oxygen demands.
Out of bed.
The two therapists aimed at Goal #4. When they asked if she wanted to get out of the bed for a while (the orders are for two hours,) Mom said “No.” When coaxed about three times, and asked if she would help them get her up, she said, “Okay.” She helped to swing her legs around off the bed, and the female therapist said, “Well, look at you! And you’ve got a pretty pedicure, too!” When each therapist linked an elbow to each of Mom’s for support, she tried to push herself up with her hands, one of which is laden with IV needles and tubes. She got up, sort of, but she had no strength to turn herself to the near right to sit on the chair.
After the third try, they put her back in bed. She bent her knees on command and helped them scoot her up in the bed. Then they adjusted this fancy bed to simulate a chair.
She fell asleep as soon as they left the room. When her head bent dramatically to her shoulder, I lifted her head and re-positioned her pillow to make a support.
I wondered, What are we doing here? And then I thought, She really needs to be at home.
This morning, two nurses used the fancy lift in the room to move her to a chair. That machine is amazing! She ate five spoonfuls of oatmeal, drank half a cup of milk, and has been sleeping ever since. The breakfast tray sent earlier was not touched. At lunch, she tried to drink V-8 juice, but it didn’t taste right to her.
Getting her to eat is not one of the goals, even though she eats very little. I’m pretty sure I can prepare food that she won’t eat as well as the hospital does. (I threw that little funny in to make sure we see a little humor.)
The plan is to move her upstairs to what I have always called a step-down unit, a section of the hospital for those moving from ICU to regular hospital rooms or skilled nursing facilities. The criteria for that move is when she is medically able. While she is there, the caseworkers might usually plan for her move to a rehabilitation center. That is not going to happen, the move to a rehabilitation center. I’ve put that out there for everyone.
This morning, watching Mom sound asleep, crumpled in the bed, vulnerable to whatever treatment she receives and whatever is going on around her, I know she needs to be at home, in her own familiar bedroom, with Dixie, Dave, and Neil, and normal routines. (Well, “normal” for the Compound residents might not look normal, but it’s our normal.) We can plan for Home Healthcare, and we will provide true care at home.
She is more lucid than she has been, and she understands a lot of what I tell her, but she is still not completely in the real world. Or maybe it’s that she is in her world, and who’s to say that’s not the real world.
Now I wonder if she will ever be medically able to leave the ICU and at what point the doctor says, “Okay, I give up.” A nurse told me, “They don’t do that. They just keep trying different things.” Her awareness has increased. Her oxygen demands have been met and could continue at home. She’s helped out of bed each day. But there’s that first goal: If she did not have the high-powered drugs delivered by the needle in her arm, she would stroke within hours.
Today, three nurses tried twice each to start a new IV. Mom’s veins are fragile. I asked, “Okay, what’s the next step?”
A pretty blonde nurse answered, “We call in the professionals, the IV therapists.”
About thirty minutes later, a tiny woman appeared with gear in hand. She looked experienced. I asked if I could watch. On the first try, she couldn’t get the IV in, but on the second try (in the other arm), she made a perfect deep stick and entry. I learned a bit and was glad she let me watch, but that’s not really what I want to look at. I hope I never see another needle in Mom’s arm.
I like to picture Mama sleeping in a gauzy forest bed of flowers between two white veils. Through one of the semi-sheer curtains, she sees and feels the comfortable life in her apartment in the Compound and the beauty of all the blooms and foliage right now outside her kitchen window. Dixie runs over to lie in her lap every morning. Dave cares for her as he would his own mom. Neil fixes things and makes her laugh. I’m always there for her. She drinks orange Gatorade every morning followed by her favorite homemade mocha, enjoys her lunch from a tray on her lap, and eats sliced strawberries soaked in sweetened milk. Her nightgown is laid out on the bed each evening, along with night underwear and hospital socks.
Behind the other veil, there is a beckoning Bright Light, so bright that the semi-transparent drape almost disappears. At some point, the Love in that Light will become irresistible. The soul will make her choice.
At the end of this day, I watch her sleep soundly in her ICU bed. Today, she has fulfilled the requirement of getting out of bed and proven her awareness has increased by remembering her full name and the month she was born every time someone asks. (1931? She doesn’t come up with that.) She receives the oxygen well and is not struggling to breathe.
Her blood pressure spikes again and a nurse starts the IV drip.
I think, for this moment, Mama is warm and happy in the space between.
For relatives and friends with whom I don’t communicate regularly, it’s tempting to say, “Fine.” I can’t see that more explanation would be helpful, certainly not to me. When close friends ask, I try to gauge the amount of time I have to answer. Sometimes I say, “She’s requiring more help now, but her mind is still sharp.” If they have time to listen, and I have a few free minutes, they might click that button that says “Learn more.” Then we engage each other briefly.
I am completely honest with my writing group, The Five Ladies-in-Writing. I know they genuinely require some details. If I haven’t asked myself the question, I sometimes have trouble formulating an answer. That’s how I learned to talk to myself about Mom; I try to speak to her condition, her care, and even my worries about the future near and far.
So, self and caregiver, how’s she doing?
Things are definitely different than a year ago.
Last year, the first time I saw Mom each morning, she was sitting in her recliner in the den. She’d made her bed and emptied her bedside commode. She’d washed herself (showered on Thursday and Sunday), put on clothes and makeup, and coordinated her jewelry to complement her outfit. She’d taken her morning meds and checked her blood pressure and weight. More often than not, she’d be drinking her morning cup of mocha. I’d found an old recipe for Instant Mocha; non-fat dry milk, powdered creamer, Nestle’s Quik or a store brand of chocolate drink mix, instant decaf, and Truvia. The TV would be on Channel 5 so she could watch Gayle King and the boys.
She’d ask what I was cooking that day, and tell me whether she’d like to have some of it. If not, she would cook for herself. She’d remind me of appointments, mine and hers, for the week, and ask me what I was going to get into that day. She’d tell me what she’d put on the grocery list, so far. Dixie would come flying into the room and demand that Mom give her an animal cracker kept on a shelf in a table by Mom’s chair.
After her treats, Dixie would settle into Mom’s lap to get morning loving.
Nowadays our morning usually goes like this. Mom calls me when she wakes. I give her a few minutes, maybe five, to sit on the side of the bed to get herself acclimated to being up. When I get there, she has part of her clothes on, or none. If she hasn’t been in the bathroom to wash, I bring her hot washcloths and towels. Somedays, we clean more than others. Maybe the bed is wet, maybe the rug beside the bed, maybe just her gown. We finish dressing. Sometimes she wears an outfit that is clean that she wore the day before. Sometimes I choose more clothes–and shoes to match. Sufficiently clothed, Mom begins the twenty steps to her dressing room with her walker.
(On shower days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, our routine varies a little. But this story is about all the other days.)
While Mom is making her way to the dressing room, I go the opposite direction through the house, turn on lights and lamps, check the pad I keep on her lift chair (she doesn’t use the lift!), unplug the new motorized wheelchair that she’s yet to master, and retrace my path to her dressing table. Sometimes she is on the vanity stool, more often just beginning to sit.
We begin her beauty routine. She applies cream to her face. I arrange her hair with a plastic pick, making curls around her face and smoothing the back. She loves hairspray and the curling iron when she’s the stylist, but I find that both make her hair brittle so I spray it with some texturizer and tweak it a little. I’ve found the softest eyeshadow pencil that both holds its color and goes on smoothly. She has blue and hazy purple. She chooses the color for the day. She wants eyebrows. I pencil them in with a charcoal pencil. She would like mascara, but the woman has double fur framing her eyes akin to Liz Taylor’s so I’ve convinced her to skip that step. (Actually, she tells me every once in a while that she wants mascara, but I tell her “Oh no, you’re not going to cover up those furry eyelashes! I’ve seen what happens when she applies mascara and I don’t even want to try it.) Lipstick: She needs dark, bright colors. She chooses from several Maybelline New York 24-hour colors. If she is feeling well, she puts it on. If not, I do it. Either way, we are as likely to miss as hit her still perfect natural lipline. I clean the oops with micellar water. She usually applies the gloss.
“Do I have earrings?” she asks. I turn to her bedroom to find a pair to match her outfit. She clips them on. If one is loose, I re-clip it.
“Okay, am I ready to go?”
I answer, “Looks like it to me. You look beautiful.”
While she walks through her dressing room, Dad’s bedroom, and down a short hall to the den, I place her morning pills into a shot glass and pour a glass of Gatorade. I take both to the den and set them on the table beside her chair. I grab her water bottle from her walker seat to exchange it for a clean one full of ice and water.
In her chair, she finds her bottle of probiotic gummies and eats them with her Gatorade, applying eye drops for her glaucoma. I return to her bedroom, empty and sanitize her bedside potty, turn the lights off, and wash my hands in her bathroom.
I ask if she’s ready for her coffee. She still drinks the mocha mix, just wants to call it coffee.
Sometimes I drink my second cup of coffee for the morning. I ask her what she wants for breakfast. She usually wants a shake, but this morning she ate sausage, half a serving of rice pudding, and toast. She drank a glass of milk.
Dave calls to ask if she wants to see Dixie. She always says she does. After Dixie eats a plate of scrambled eggs, two animal crackers, and a small handful of cashews, the two of them begin their daily love-in.
We always knew someone in The Compound would fall in the ravine. Lord knows Dad tried. He decided in 2010 he would cut brush and clean up the vines on the bank; you know, “clear the land.” He devised the perfect way to enter and exit the big ditch. He routinely lowered a tall ladder (a really, really tall one) over the edge of the bank and propped it against a tree on the steep side of the ravine. Before descending, he’d throw all the tools he might need somewhere near the ladder. When he finished with a tool, he reared back and threw the tool onto level ground.
You haven’t really lived–or maybe come so close to dying–as feeling a hatchet whiz by your head while peacefully attending the weeds in the lower garden.
I yelled as soon as I heard the whoosh of the ax. “Dad! You almost got me!”
He shinnied up the ladder, and when he finally saw me, said, “But I didn’t.”
Dad stopped his forays into the ravine a few years ago. I admit I was a bit relieved. He warned me, “Don’t get too close to that ravine. That ground is soft. You don’t want to fall in.”
The vines returned; Virginia Creeper, Japanese honeysuckle, wintercreeper, and a few muscadines. Brush re-established; same old non-native privet, pokeweed, winterberry, and thistles. We keep them controlled for about two feet off the back yard, what we can easily reach. We’ve also seen a fair assortment of plants whose roots or bulbs Dad tossed over the edge including Rose-of-Sharon, iris, cannas, and a couple berry briars.
This past May, I noticed a bunch of one- to two-foot Royal Pawlonia sprouts in the area where we’d taken down the tree several years ago. We’ve watched the grounds carefully since the removal of the offender, so I was surprised to see the scary little crop with the pretty purple flowers. Royal Pawlonia, or Princess Tree, is wildly invasive and spews out millions–no, really, I mean millions–of seeds every year. If you want to find out how bad it really is, just look it up in your Wikipedia.
“Dave,” I said, “you’re going to have to spray those little purple trees or we’re going to have hundreds of them full-grown before we know it.”
He chose to fertilize the roses and eradicate the Pawlonia shoots on a Sunday about 1:30. I knew he was tending to roses, but I did not know he’d loaded up a sprayer to kill the tiny trees.
I put on what I call my painting clothes, dug weeds, and had just gone upstairs to Mom and Dad’s apartment to tend to some needs of our old folks when I heard the special tune on the phone.
“Hello, I know it’s you,” I said to Dave.
He answered, “Help, I’ve fallen into the ravine and I can’t get out.”
“What do you want?” I asked my usual first question when he starts with some (lame) humor.
“I want you to come get me out of the ravine.”
“So what are you doing in the ravine?” I chuckled a little.
“I was spraying those purple things.” He blew out hard.
“You’re joking, right?”
His voice gained decibels. “No, I’m not joking. You have to come help me.”
“Well, I’m not…” I started to tell him no way was I going to go in with him. “No, wait, are you hurt?”
“Yes, I’m hurt,” he said.
“I’ll be right there.” I stuck my phone in my pocket and called to Mom in the kitchen, “He’s not kidding. He fell in the ravine.”
I hurried down the steps of the apartment and ran over to the edge of our beloved big ditch. He was lying on the bank in a mostly-vertical position, the spectre enhanced by a bush with little white flowers wreathed around his head. I saw blood.
“Where are you hurt?” I called.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think you’ve broken anything? A leg? Arm? Shoulder?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, but I can’t get up the bank.”
“Okay, let me just…” I tested three places on the ground above him. All were soft.
“I think we better call 911. I can’t get down there,” I said.
“No, don’t call them. Go get Don.”
I called our next-door neighbor, hoping he’d be home.
When he answered, I asked, “Don, are you at home?”
“Yeah.”
“Dave has fallen in the ravine. We need help.”
All the other times I call him, Dave is headed his way with soup or ham or pie. He could have been disappointed, but he was there in what seemed like two seconds.
“See that stump?” I asked. “He’s just to this side of the stump.”
Don called down to Dave to check his condition. I whispered, “I think he landed on his face. There’s a lot of blood on his face.”
“Have you got a long pole?” he asked. I don’t know what I gave him, but he told Dave he was lowering the pole. “You grab on and I’ll pull you out.”
Dave struggled to hold to the pole, and when he finally got it in two hands, his feet gave way to the slippery slope.
Don turned to me. “I’m going down.”
“No, don’t do that,” I said. “Then I’d just have two of you down there. Dad used to go up and down on a tall ladder. Maybe we should try that.”
“That’s right. Where’s the ladder?” he asked.
“Propped against the side of the garage over there.” I pointed. “I’ll help you.”
“I don’t need any help. I can get it,” Don said, but I still followed a few steps behind him. He picked up the ladder. We stopped at the edge and looked down. “I don’t see anything to prop it against.”
“What’s wrong with that stump he just face-planted?” I asked.
“Dave, I’m lowering the ladder right next to you. Do you think you can get on it if I prop it on that stump?” Don asked.
“Maybe,” Dave answered.
After two unsuccessful attempts Don said, “He can’t get his feet on the ladder.”
“I’ll go down on the ladder and pull him onto it,” I said.
Don was quick to stop me. “No, then I’d just have the two of YOU down there. I’ll go down.”
“I’m on the ladder,” Dave yelled.
“Did you get on it? Can you climb it?” Don asked.
At the top of the ravine, Don grabbed Dave and pulled him up.
“Thanks, Don. Dave, honey, come on, get in the van. We’re headed for the ER.”
He staggered after me in the garage. I threw a towel in the passenger seat for him to sit on.
Southern Hills Hospital is a mile and a half from us. We were there bloody, muddy, and generally nasty but triaged and in a bay in no time.
I looked at my watch. 4:30. My friend Peggy and I had a Lyft scheduled at 6:00 to take us to Schermerhorn Symphony Center to see PostModern Jukebox. This was the second time I’d bought tickets to PMJ. The first time I was ill and, even though I tried, no one used the tickets. The current set of tickets was a birthday gift to my friend and I had already reneged on another trip (another story) so I was determined. (I’m trying to pre-explain why I did what I did later.)
I messaged Peggy. Dave is in the ER. Fell in ravine.
Peggy: Is he hurt?
Me: I don’t think it’s too bad. I mean, he’s bloody and all that, but the doctor ordered x-rays and CT. They just came and took him to x-ray. He’s got a big gash on his face.
She asked more questions about his condition and then finished with No way we can get to the Schermerhorn on time.
I was quick. We’re going to see PostModern Jukebox.
Peggy: I’m dressed. I’ll wait until you tell me to leave home. The drive from Readyville to our house is about forty-five minutes.
After the CT scan, I was relieved to know that all Dave needed was a few stitches across one side of his face–the side that hit the stump. (He’d already started planning a story about how he got the scar in a bar, his favorite tale, something about defending my honor.)
I messaged Peggy. We’re going to go to the concert.
Peggy: But you’re not dressed. Didn’t you say you had to get in the shower?
Me: I can make do. I’ll hurry. I’m going to call Darrin (Dave’s son–mine, too). I should have already called him.
I messaged the whole story to Darrin and Dana, ending with, “So can you come and pick up Dave and take him home? They’re about to sew up his face and I’ve got tickets to PMJ.” I knew Darrin the Drummer would understand.
I turned to Dave. “Honey, do you think it would be okay for me to go home, get dressed, and go to the concert?”
“Sure,” he said, “but you’ll need to bring me a vehicle so I can drive home. Maybe Peggy could bring me the van while you get dressed.” He really hadn’t thought that she’d need to get back to our house somehow.
Peggy answered my earlier text. I don’t see how.
Me: Come on, we’ll figure it out.
I received a return message from Dana. Darrin is on a plane. (He travels for work.) Do you think it would be okay for me to bring Evan with me? Evan is their very active three-year-old.
I wouldn’t, I answered. What if you just came and picked him up? He can call you when he’s ready.
“Is that okay, honey?” I asked Dave.
“Sure,” he said.
She called. “I can pick him up. Tell him to call me and Evan and I will come and get him. I’ll stay with him for a while to make sure he’s okay.”
I told her I needed to leave like, right now, and to text me when she got Dave home. She told me to go on and have a good time.
At home, I threw off my filthy pants and shirt, washed my face and reapplied deodorant, sprayed some dry-cleaner on my hair followed by a some fluffing, and found some clothes decent enough to wear. At least I think they were decent enough.
Peggy yelled “I’m here” when she came in the door.
I was still in the bathroom. “You have to take Dave’s wallet to him.” I rushed to the bureau where he kept his wallet.
“To the emergency room?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, handing it to her.
While she was gone, I had plenty of time to smear some makeup around and grab earrings. It wasn’t my regular routine, but I declared it finished.
In the Lyft vehicle, I looked down to see that my feet looked like they were still in the dirt. I had two wipes in my purse and used both of them. My feet weren’t perfect but they were “better than they were,” one of Dave’s favorite sayings.
***
We arrived at the Schermerhorn just in time.
I checked messages every few minutes. No word from Dana. Finally, I texted her to ask how things went. She thought she had already messaged me. She said things went fine except… Oh my god Diana he looked like an ax murderer.
What a show, what a show! PMJ was all I thought they should be and more. At one point, I gave thanks for Dad’s ravine trips up and down the ladder, for Dave’s willingness to allow me to abandon him in his hour of need (he really wasn’t that bad off, okay?), for Dana’s pickup and delivery, but especially for my man’s survival with less-than-could-have-been injuries.
So, maybe the thanksgiving was after the concert when I got home to see him sitting in his recliner watching one of his favorite shows.
“I got all but about two of those little purple things,” he said.
For Dad, it’s Alive Hospice, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
The Nashville facility was full and the admissions nurse so determined that Dad needed to be there that she sent him to the Murfreesboro campus at midnight Friday.
Daddy rests in a large room halfway between the nurse’s desk and a family room containing comfortable chairs, recliners, and couches that flip into beds. There are several family rooms here, one with a dining area in front of a wall full of windows. The light streams in as if on cue.
In Dad’s room, we keep the lights dim. The room is quiet and peaceful; so is Dad.
He only stayed at the skilled nursing facility less than two days. We knew it was not the place for him, and when his kidneys began to fail Friday, the attending nurse practitioner recommended an immediate move.
With the help of the SNF’s social workers and nurses, Alive Hospice Nurse Gail ordered an ambulance for 11:00 P.M. They arrived at 11:45, two youngsters in ball caps reading Medic One.
“I’ll be riding in the back with him,” the smaller one said. “I see his diagnosis here is dementia. Has he ever become combative or kicked or punched a nurse or tech?”
I hesitated. “Yes, he did at the hospital, but that was when he was in complete psychosis. He’s not doing that now.”
“Well, I just wanted to let you know that if that happens….”
Big Guy butted in. “No, no,” he told his sidekick. “If something happens, you just let me know and I’ll pull over to the side of the road and come back there to help you get him calmed. We want to be very soft…soft.”
I could actually imagine a scene like that.
I left before the ambulance. The ramp to I-440 was closed, probably because of a fatal accident earlier in the day, but when I turned around to go the opposite direction, there were cars making left turns onto the interstate so I followed them.
I met Shirley, the night charge nurse, the techs, and the front door security guard. Shirley went over the care plan, medications that they’d be using, and ways they operate. She said the doctor would see me on Saturday. I told her it was already Saturday.
A nurse stuck her head in the room. “I am wondering what is taking that transport so long. Did you leave a long time before they did?”
“No, I was right in front of them, but I bet they got to that closed ramp and found another route.”
Turns out, that’s exactly what happened. They were automatically re-routed.
Dad was awake. Shirley explained what was happening.
“Ernie, we’re going to give you some pain medication and then we’ll give you a bath first thing and get you all freshened up.”
Two techs and two nurses busied themselves over him. He talked to them in slurred speech and from an altered state, but they caught about every third sentence.
“You are a handsome man,” one said. Another asked him about his 72-year marriage. “What’s the secret?” she asked.
“Let each other be free to grow and develop” is what we think we heard. I confirmed that he might have said that.
Then came the washing of the private parts.
“Ernie, we are going to have to wash you down there. Normally, we’d just let you do it, but you have some leftover bm there and we want you to be clean, okay?”
“Ah, you girls just want to look at me,” he said. “All the time.”
We all laughed at him.
“No, we don’t, but I’m going to raise your gown and clean you up and then we’ll put a fresh pad and gown on you.”
He picked up a towel a tech had left beside him. “Then I’m just going to put this over my face,” he said, and hid his whole head from the offending eyes.
We laughed some more, but they got him cleaned up and bundled up in his new bed.
***
Dad now gets a pretty stiff cocktail of haldol, morphine, and a valium-like drug. The dosage is small but repeatable. If he is not calm twenty minutes after the last offering, the nurse starts the routine again, or she slightly increases the morphine.
He lies quiet in the bed most of the time but when the meds start to wear off, he twists, grimaces, and mumbles.
The grandsons and families came to visit yesterday, including Jaxton and Savannah, ages 5 and 3. Neither was upset by Grandpa’s condition. Savvy said hi to him several times, anxious to get an answer from him. Mom was glad to see the little ones.
I stayed last night. I played music to him and sang to him, hoping something might connect. In the middle of the night, I heard him say, “Diana.” I wasn’t sure of that until I sat up and waited for him to call me again. It’s like what happens when you try to say my name without being able to move the tongue.
“Lie-ah-uh,” it sounds like.
“What, Dad? What do you need?”
He grasps my hand. I kiss him on his old bald head.
My daddy hovers, sometimes thrashes, naked, his mind somewhere along an invisible jagged line between his tiny spot of time and space on earth and the ultimate reality of Infinity.
His heart beats so fast sometimes that we fear stroke. Doctors get his heart rate down and his blood pressure goes up. Get the blood pressure down too low and some other wheel falls off the old bus.
He fell in his bedroom sometime very early a week ago Tuesday morning. Before we found him on the floor with a bloody gash on his head, he’d pulled shirts, belts, and a bootjack from his closet. He told us he’d ducked into a shed for shelter from the rain and realized he’d stepped into some man’s corn crib. Then he couldn’t get out of the field and had crawled through rough straw for miles.
Dad did not get confused because he fell; he fell because he was already confused in the night and hallucinating. We’ve seen a slow slide toward dementia for about three years, but since last Christmas the disease has tracked him like a cat, consistently and with increasing speed. We’ve watched a wretched auto-immune disease rob him of the ability to enjoy food and then to swallow well. His legs grew weaker and weaker, so often he could not stand, even with his walker.
In the emergency room after the fall, he fought with three cats, two black and one black and white, that kept pouncing on the bed. Every time he kicked them off, they came back. I shooed them away. He re-told the corn crib story with variations and repeated an earlier adventure stripping tobacco with two youngsters who would not talk to him. He was pretty sure they could talk, they just wouldn’t. The ER physician called a hospitalist to provide overnight observation.
Once in the room on the fifth floor tests began, including an ultra-sound on his legs. The technician came in Wednesday morning, made it through the scan of one leg and then Dad refused. He kicked at the machine operator. She dodged and moved the equipment. He kicked some more. When nurses arrived to rescue the tech, he doubled his fists and slapped at them.
I said, “I don’t think you’re going to get that next one.”
She smiled and said, “I’m pretty sure of that.”
Within a few hours, the a-fib grew worse and Dad grew so wild and combative I wished for restraints. They came quickly. He did not sleep–not one wink-– for four days. One night, I bent over to pick something up just under the edge of his bed and even though his hands were tied, he grabbed my hair. It took a few minutes to pry his hand loose.
My dad’s wild mind fashioned a scary story with escalating horror. He gave me the base plot as he dressed me down. I was trying to kill him, leading a band of nurses are my followers. He kept saying that he can’t believe I would do this for money. “Greed. Evil. You are no daughter of mine.” I stood stark still, as if at attention, stung and disoriented. The words might have attached themselves to a deep sorrow if I hadn’t heard a voice. “This is not your dad.”
For several hours, there was a huge farm machine loose on his farm. We–the nurses, Jade, John, and I–had already destroyed the farm with this wrecker/excavator. We knocked down trees and ran through the shallow creek, breaking the flat limestone into small pieces. We were going to let it run over him, and then it was somehow above him and we were preparing to let it fall to crush him. One hour we were setting him afire. Another time, we were trying to poison him.
He disowned me, then started yelling again. I tried to slip a dry mouth lozenge in his mouth but I wasn’t quick enough. He can’t bite since he has no teeth but he clamped his jaws shut, turtle tight. Then he said to the air on his left, “Jameson, look at your mother. This is the kind of mama you have.” Jameson is my grandson, not my grandson, and he is safe at home in his own bed.
Dad got back to serious yelling. “Where is Mom [my mother]? She’s the only good person around here.”
The student nurse asked, “Does he like music?”
“Yes!” I said. “I can’t believe I haven’t thought of that. I should have brought in a player. There’s no music channel on the TV.”
Wait, I thought. I could stream from my laptop.
I grabbed my almost-dead HP from my bag and began the frustrating process of hooking up to the hospital free-for-visitors wi-fi. It’s a finicky network. I spent twenty minutes and then gave up.
Dad changed the venue. “Help! Come on, we’re down here in the bottom by the creek. They’re trying to crucify us all.”
The last time he had mentioned crucifixion, the nurses were attaching restraints. I watched him pull at the cords and thought of rodeos and roped calves. I remembered a pig bound and hung for slaughter at my grandfather’s farm, and of holding my dog Murphy for an injection.
That night, I left him praying. The words were plain and the sentences cohesive. “Lord, thank you for this life I’ve been given. And if you want me to die now, I’ll come. I ask you to forgive Diana and all these evil persons who are doing this to me. They know not what they do. Take care of their little children.” I walked out of the room, on down the long hall to the parking garage.
The next time, he was on the hill at the farm in Smith County. He called for his mother. “Mama, come on here. I’m up on the hill. They’re about to kill your last son. Don’t you see the smoke?”
He did not remember that seventy-two years ago on the same day, Halloween, he and my mother took a long taxi ride to Georgia and married. He was seventeen, she “fourteen-almost-fifteen,” they said.
My mom waits at home, not really worrying, just pondering. She is dressed in blue matching pants and top, her curly hair neatly combed back, and her ensemble accessorized with the usual rings, earrings, bracelet, and necklace.
After two days and several doses of psychiatric drugs, the restraints were removed. He was still agitated but not trying to hurt anyone. He rolled his sheet and blanket into a wad and tossed them to the floor. He pulled his arms through his gown, easing the heart monitor through a sleeve. The gown and a couple Chux pads found the floor. I heard a pop, pop, pop as he removed the leads to the heart monitor. He seemed pleased that he had wires to untwist. He repeated the process several times.
He slid down the bed and pounded the foot rail in a surprisingly steady rhythm. He called for my mother, yelling louder than he’s been able to in years.
I told him, “Dad, Mom is not here.”
Sometimes, for a minute or two, he believed me when I told him, “You’re in the hospital, Dad.”
“In the hospital? What am I doing here?”
I told him, “You have to stay for a while until you get better, and you are getting better.”
“Am I in South Carthage?”
“No, Dad, you’re in Nashville. At St. Thomas.”
At times, it connected and he said, “Oh-h-h-h-h-h.” Another time he added, nodding his head, “So that’s the problem!”
One afternoon, he asked, “Did you know the cats are back?”
“No,” I said. “What are they doing?”
“Oh, they’re just lying around down there at the foot of the bed.”
I said, “But you’re not trying to kick them off.”
“No, I got used to them.”
From time to time, the psychiatrist Dr. Le Coguic stuck her head in the room to ask a few questions with telling answers.
She: What year is it, Mr. Blair? He: 2017. She: When were you born? He: Five, twenty-nine, no. Five, nine, no. Twenty-five. She: That’s good enough! Now who’s the President? He: Truman. She: Hmmmmm.
I snuck in a word there. “He really knows. I asked him myself yesterday and he said Truman and I said, ‘No, it’s Trump, Dad,’ and he said, ‘Yes, that’s who I mean so just pretend I’m saying Trump when I say Truman.'”
Dr. Le Coguic laughs out loud. “Good enough!” she said.
The next time she asked him, he said, “Oh, that damn Trump. Truman.”
The morning of November 7, I walked into the room where a soft-spoken chaplain introduced herself to me as Gail. She was asking Dad if he was a spiritual person. She didn’t understand him, but he answered her, “I suppose so. I’ve got a Master’s of Divinity from seminary.” I translated a few sentences to her until Dr. Chris MacMurdro from the Palliative Care Department stepped in. Because Dad was still talking with Gail, Dr. Mac asked if we might step down the hall to talk.
“Call me Dr. Mac or Chris,” she said and explained her specialty. After several minutes of discussion about what I might expect or anticipate or decide, Dr. Mac told me with his refusal to eat or drink, Dad would likely be gone in two weeks. It’s too early for hospice, she said, but you will need them. If Dad goes to a skilled nursing facility, he might get a few days.
Just as Dr. Mac and I were ending our conversation, Gail approaches us from the doorway of the family waiting room. “Your dad,” she said, and placed her hand over her heart. “Oh my. And thank you for helping me understand what he was saying. I could understand him after that.”
“Good,” I said.
“This is the first time a patient has prayed over me,” she said.
“He did?” I asked.
She teared up. “I asked him if he would like me to pray with him, and he took my hands and said, ‘I’ll pray for you.'”
“And he did?” I said.
“Yes, and now I have to go sit down somewhere and cry.”
***
Still a small smile.
Later that day, when I told Dr. Mac the evening Zyprexa seemed to make Dad more agitated instead of less as it was supposed to do, she wanted to revisit his history of hallucinations and his increasingly weak legs. “Let me go back and look at his chart again,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”
“Dad,” I said, “would you drink one of your protein shakes? I have a cooler over here with three drinks in it. Which one–chocolate or vanilla?”
His eyes lit up a little. “Chocolate!”
I rolled the bed up and offered him the straw in the bottle. He tried to take the bottle.
“I want to drink it. Myself.”
“Well, okay.” I grabbed some Chux pads and tucked one around the top half of his body. I helped him hold the drink, with him struggling to wrest it from me, until I knew he’d had enough that he wouldn’t immediately pour the stuff all over himself.
He drank almost all of the eight ounces. He drank almost ALL of the EIGHT OUNCES, the most food of any kind he’d had since more than a week ago.
Dr. Mac called. “Diana, this is not Alzheimer’s. I’m thinking more like Parkinson’s with Lewy bodies. That would explain the reaction to the Zyprexa. Do you know much about Parkinson’s?”
“Enough. A lot,” I said.
She said he wanted to confer with the hospitalist, Dr. Meadors, about switching him over to something like Valium, which would be much more effective if we were treating Parkinson’s.
Sure enough, the Valium (or whatever it was) helped calm him. Dr. Mac called to say that Dad appeared now to qualify for in-patient hospice, and she had arranged a meeting with Rosie from Alive Hospice downtown. She explained her wish for inpatient hospice.
“The Parkinson’s thought changes everything. His medications seem to be headed in the right direction. He could use the meds management at inpatient to get them all tweaked to the point that you could manage him at home with the help of home hospice.” She fears for my ability to physically manage him at home right now and for my mother’s emotional health as she watches Dad decline.
I made her promise that she will always work toward our goal of getting him home. She repeats to me all the information I’ve given her, including the DNR and comfort care directives.
End of day, Wednesday, November 7. Dad slept peacefully almost all night.
Yesterday morning, he knew me when I arrived. He smiled and said, “Hello, honey.” Dr. Mac called to discuss the latest strategy since he has improved enough that he probably does not qualify for inpatient hospice. “We’re thinking we can send him over to the rehab facility.”
Dad and I sat in quiet most of the day yesterday. He was tired. He thought he might want sausage and eggs. I tried. He drank a bit of milk shake. I tried again. I massaged his aching hands with cream, swabbed his gums and washed out his mouth.
“You’re going to make me bald,” he said when I rubbed his head. That’s a little joke we have. Not long after that, we both dozed at the same time.
When I told him I was leaving for the day, he said, “Be careful driving home. Is it still raining?”
I said, “No.” It did not rain all day yesterday.
Just as I started to exit the room, he called softly but firmly, “You are going to call Red Blair to help you get that big machine off the hill, aren’t you?”
I knew it was coming someday, and it was my own fault. She was already in bed, curled up, occupying the space that would hold my feet if that little Punkin’ wasn’t there. I bent down at the foot of the bed to kiss her on the head and she didn’t feel me coming. Bless her, she can’t see, hear nor smell very well, but most of the time she senses me present. She didn’t hurt me and didn’t growl. It was as close as she could get to biting without biting.
We’ll celebrate Murphy’s fourteenth birthday April 22.
Jameson Blair Graham, the oldest grandson, will turn fourteen on May 17. Our little black and white fuzzball Murphy Sweet Punkin’ has been plagued with medical problems, including an autoimmune disease, and has already lived past the average age of demise for a Shih-tzu. In contrast, Jameson is leaned in and fast approaching adulthood. He’s left all pre-teen notions behind and is a bonafide, full-fledged teenager. He still loves his young cousin, and they think he’s wonderful. He’ll be driving on a learner’s permit in a little over a year.
Yeah, we know what’s coming, and we know it’s coming soon.
We bought a lift chair for Dad yesterday. It is a pretty chair, just the right size for his space, chocolate brown faux suede. Dad turns eighty-nine in September. He’s fallen several times since Christmas, the time when his scleroderma started acting out as if on a mission. Some days, he’s needed help to get out of his old favorite recliner–or actually any chair he sits in. His legs won’t hold him up without his Rollator, and several times a day, he can’t even move his feet holding to the walker.
After Sunday Dinner this week, Dave and I made the decision to set the table at the apartment from now on. Mom always writes Sunday Dinner with the two capitals, I think because it’s one of their favorite times at our house. We set the table with the good silverware and glasses, and we always use cloth napkins–unless we’re eating pasta with red sauce or pork barbecue. Dad was too weak to eat Sunday. It was exhausting to walk those one hundred steps or so to the table, impossible for him to navigate to a chair in the den, and futile to think he could get out of his at-my-house favorite, an old red chenille recliner.
Murphy loved Old Red in her younger years. It’s been a long time since she could jump on and off a chair.
Monday morning, he was in the bedroom trying to play Merle Haggard on his new boombox (generously donated on Sunday afternoon by fellow book-clubber Susan) when he fell, punching out the cane back of his sturdy wooden chair. I hurried next door when Mom called. Dave was away from home, but I knew I could call on neighbor Don to help me get him up if necessary. I found Dad on all fours, trying to crawl across the bedroom to the bathroom. He knew he needed to clean up and change some clothes. With Mom’s help, I convinced him to get his chest against his punched-out chair. It took three tries, but I got him up–and he helped. His voice was so weak I could barely hear him.
Once in the bathroom, he cleaned up as much as he could, holding himself upright by pressing against the clothes dryer. I “polished him off” and then scrubbed down the place, paying particular attention to the washer and dryer that acted as his props. I was reminded to find Mom a dryer since hers quit that very morning. Later that afternoon, I bought a new dryer at Lowe’s and drove a few miles to Franklin to pick up my newly repaired sewing machine.
The dryer arrived on Tuesday morning.
We moved Dad’s old leather recliner downstairs to his study, a place nobody goes anymore except to water overwintering plants. We got another wooden armchair for Dad’s bedroom and started looking for a sturdy chair for the den, one that might be described as “easy in, easy out.” Then we put Old Red up for sale, even though it really was the most comfortable seat in the house. It doesn’t match the den colors anyway.
So we’re prepared. We know what’s coming, but we don’t know how soon.
Boy-oh-boy, Ash Wednesday seemed to come early this year—what to give up for Lent, what to take on, what to lose, what to find, what to… I’m still pondering my New Year’s Resolutions.
I made some. It took me until January 11 to adopt my list of intended personal improvements for 2013. I make resolutions every year. There have been years—and years—that I have vowed to “lose fifty pounds and walk to China” as my friend says and at first I added to my 2013 list,“Weigh xxx on x date.” (On x date, the Revells will be attending the Bucking Horse Sale in Miles City, Montana.)
There’s a reason I don’t include that intention on my final 2013 list: I’m a bit superstitious. Dr. Joyce Brothers (remember her?) appeared to me in a dream the night of January 10. In my dream, she just faded in and then faded out, but the next morning I remembered that sometime in the early seventies, I saw her on the Mike Douglas show and she talked about goals. I know exactly where I was standing and what I was doing. The boys were both down for the afternoon nap. I stepped into the living room from the kitchen, drying a plate with a dishtowel. Dr. Brothers said that perhaps it would help to set a “series of small goals” rather than one large one. Mike asked her to give us an example.
She answered, “If you are washing dishes, and it seems too overwhelming a task to accomplish, perhaps you could say ‘I’ll wash all the silverware’.” Then, she said, after you’ve washed and rinsed the forks and knives, you make a promise on the salad plates.
Dishes? She thought washing the dishes was worthy of goal-setting? I sat down in the rocking chair, the plate and towel in my lap, when I heard her say, “You psychologically reward yourself when you accomplish that small piece of your larger goal.” I thought, maybe even aloud, that anyone who had to set a series of small goals to wash the dishes was in bad trouble for anything truly worthy of accomplishment.
After my Joyce Brothers sighting that morning, I considered my long, oppressive list of possible resolutions and thought about small steps I could take to work toward the major changes. I concluded that might be too ambitious and unrealistic and that what I needed was a shorter list. I was a tad inspired—only a tad—but I reduced the multiple-item list to three. I combined, eliminated, and re-stated resolutions to get to:
Never wear pants that are too short.
Walk every day.
Get off sugar, as in “eliminate sugar from my diet”.
Gone were such specificities of the original promises as “Be two sizes down in my jeans by May”, “Give away half of my 40 T-shirts”, and “Walk to China and lose 50 pounds.” I completely forsook entire original list items like “Meditate/Read/Journal daily”, “Write every day”, and “Organize that *!%$ garage.” I cleverly placed myself in the arena of the possibility of success by declaring only three (3) resolutions.
#1 seemed easy. I tried on and sorted “too short” and “okay”. The dress pants are fine, but only one pair of jeans gets the label “okay”. #1 could get difficult, certainly expensive. There are two resolutions to this resolution dilemma and I’m going to use both of them. One, wear lower heels with the shorter jeans. Two, save the shorter jeans for summer cropped jeans; they’ll look fine with sandals. I changed #1 and I think it’s going to work:
Never wear pants that are too short. (Substitute “buy” for the “wear“.)
Let’s talk about #2. I don’t know when (although I do know why) I made the decision, but I changed #2:
Walk every day. Get some kind of exercise every day.
Then I changed it again:
Walk every day. Get some kind of exercise every day. (Substitute “MOVE” for the strike-through words.)
I figured the stairs to The Cellar would count; I could make extra trips up and down. I also ordered Zumba Gold – Live It Up. I haven’t started my dance exercise education yet but I have new shoes. And I’ve kept the bird feeders filled (another abandoned resolution from List Uno). And I’ve made great progress on one I mentioned earlier in this writing, the one about “that *!%$ garage”.
Let me just say that it takes stamina and calories to hoist boxes of chafing dishes and bins of T-shirts. I moved a before-plasma, ante-LCD 36-inch TV along with an HP multi-function printer that insists it has a paper jam when I know that it does not. (Somebody else is going to have to deal with that big fat liar.) I climbed on ladders and stools; I stretched, bended, and bounced. I dug and sifted and swept.
I also sat and sorted and remembered. Things like a program from my high school musical, Guys and Dolls, provided not only a jaunt up and down Memory Lane but also time for rest. I gave myself permission to spend time. I let myself wander through the boys’ report cards and achievement tests; there was plenty of time to re-visit favorite cards and letters. I remembered that resolution I wrote that said, “Work at being present” and followed it with “Live in the moment”. My leafing through old pages was hardly “present” but I was present for the experience and I was certainly living in that blessed moment.
I sort of “came to” (Southern speech for “woke up from being out cold”) one evening after a particularly productive three hours in the garage. I only stopped working when the back end of the garage became too dark, even with the door open, to see what I was doing. I considered that I was tired; I wondered how many calories I had expended. But my promise to myself wasn’t to burn calories; it was to set aside time to just move—intentionally and regularly.
So, today, while Dave installed two additional overhead utility lights so that I can see to finish my storage project, I hurried to a neighborhood church to start a regimen on the family life center’s walking track. I remember that walking time is thinking time and I turn joyful. Walking is meditation. I think of savoring these weekly hours on the track.
Walking at the church costs $15.00 a year. I get a tote bag when I walk 592 miles—“to Branson, MO.” If I come back (and I might not since I’ve never been to Branson), I get a gift certificate for double that mileage. At least it’s not to and from China.
January 15 marked the first day of infringement on #3.
I hate to blame a baby, but when my new grandson Jaxton didn’t arrive by 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon, and there did arrive a prediction that “it will probably be 6:30 or so”, OtherGrammy Helen and I made a break for the cafeteria. After a small and sensible meal, we dawdled in the hospital gift shop, almost as if our absence from the OB waiting room could somehow hasten Anjie’s labor.
There was a sale on everything Christmas-themed. I found the perfect thing, a size 18-24 months furry reindeer jacket, complete with antlers and red nose on the hood.. Somehow, a Snickers bar, a Yorkshire Mint Patty, and a bag of Peanut M & M’s snuck their way into my bag to keep company with Jaxton’s next (first) Christmas coat.
I’m not saying a word about what Helen and Anjie’s sister Jackie brought back to the waiting room. That’s their business, but I will say that the condition and inhabitants of the place where you wait for babies propelled all three of us into a gone-rogue sucrose attack.
Six young women sported primary colored hair; I lost count of combinations on others. There was no end to the tats on one guy, even when he stood still, never mind the piercings. A full-back dragon on another (shirtless) was mesmerizing; the tail swerved down his right leg. (He donned saggy shorts.) And there was this one fellow who somehow lost the entire crotch of his pants! How do I know? Because he showed us.
For some reason, a fast-food bag rested under every third chair. I noted McDonald’s, Arby’s, Hardee’s, and Taco Bell (my choice of the four–it was NOT my bag, though). A garbage can sat less than twenty feet away from any row of chairs.
A young mother (I don’t know what relation she was to which imminent birth) arrived with a fat set of keys on an 18-inch pink lanyard. For forty-five minutes, she swung the keys by the end of the strap, round and round through the air, scraping the floor with a loud crash when gravity inevitably brought them down swing after swing. She only lost complete control of the keys one time and they launched across the room, unfortunately stopped by the full wall of windows. I fleetingly hoped the big wad of metal would break the plate glass and sail into the HVAC unit on the roof, but no. She was just as quick to retrieve the keys and start the swing all over again.
And then First-time Grammy (FTG) two rows away succumbed to the stress of pre-Grammyhood and stood in the middle of the room to sob, “Why don’t they do something for her?” Shortly thereafter, “they” did do something for “her” and FTG’s daughter brought her own nine pound daughter into the world via C-section. First-time Grammy de-railed again but was, this time, quickly comforted. I felt her helplessness—and then her relief.
Jaxton Edward Graham said hello with a loud wail at 8:35 p.m., according to the young blonde female doctor who finally came to take us to the room at 10:30. I fell in love with all 6 pounds 7 ounces of him. He looked teensy in the arms of his big daddy.
I ate the M&M’s on the drive home. All that was in the bag of reddish brown fur was Jaxton’s reddish brown reindeer coat. The sugar solution evades me yet.
I do know this: Resolutions only work for me if there is only one resolution. It’s a vague statement, an elusive promise, but the same every year, every month, every day: Balance. Everything in moderation. Live abundantly, but live. Be frugal, but generous. Organize for the future, but live in the moment. Let the past be gone, but savor memories. Be happy, and dance. Dance, and move. Move a little, and move more. Moving inspires good eating. Eat well can mean eat less. A treat is special at a special time.
Pare down and attend more intensely. Diana, dwell on the riches: a new grandbaby, healthy Mom and Dad, loving children, a place to write, books to read, a working body. Warmth in winter, shade in summer, the stillness of the ravine.
Clean out the clutter. Give away. Consume little. Share everything. Work to be a good human.
So what singular item do I choose that might start a chain of living in balance? What might feed my spirit most? What might be most appropriate for Lent?
In the most real observance of Lent, we discover the full humanity of the Jesus of Christianity. So much of the time, it is so much easier to imagine mystical divinity than to accept the flesh and blood human—the human like us, the human that we are also meant to be.
For my Lenten journey, I’ll begin with time for a thoughtful walk—three or four times a week. At the very least.
Dad turns eighty-nine in September. He’s fallen several times since Christmas, the time when his scleroderma started acting out as if on a mission. Some days, he’s needed help to get out of his old favorite recliner–or actually any chair he sits in. His legs won’t hold him up without his Rollator, and several times a day, he can’t even move his feet holding to the walker.
On the Ravine 