I ponder care for others ...

My Little Buddy left on a jet plane yesterday for a much-deserved weekend of fun and relaxation in Houston with her cousin Phyllis Cole. Little Pal has been through a lot in the last few years, including the sale and subsequent demolition of her family home, built by her father’s hands on nights and weekends, after long days in cotton fields, when she was still just a twinkle in his eye. No two people ever doted on a child as Julius and Hazel Cole doted on their daughter. And she returned it stroke by stroke.

Then, a few days ago, she watched her last parent leave this life.

Regret? I suppose she’s had a few, but if there ever was a child who watched over and cared for her parents more loyally or faithfully, I’d like to know about it. It prompts me, this morning, to offer a few thoughts on final care. It is a particularly exhausting and trying experience to dedicate one’s life to a caring experience that offers no chance for cure.

To borrow a thought from Thomas Gray, the paths of final care “lead but to the grave.”

We never thought we would be placing the dear person I called “The Lady Hazel” in a nursing home. After all, her daughter was, by education and training, a Registered Nurse Practitioner. A person in her keep would have to be awfully sick before nursing home care would be required, wouldn’t they?

We underestimated things, including the process of caring for one who, because of the ravages of advanced dementia, had lost both the will and ability to move. Try assisting someone, who may appear frail, in meeting all the essential functions of life on a daily basis. After seven years, we made the painful decision to seek professional help. We opted for nursing home care.

Allow me to say a few words about it.

We had experience with two facilities in Central Arkansas. In both cases, we found the highest level of attention and concern. We found no fault with either. Perhaps we appreciated it all the more because we knew, first-hand, the trials of caring for, what the Galilean might have included as “the least of those among us.” Perhaps those who seek every opportunity to find fault with, and sue over, the slightest perceived neglect, have never experienced the necessity of removing a comatose patient from a bed for daily care.

Many of Hazel’s nursing home companions required such intimate care. Some didn’t. Some appeared to have been able to live at home with family if the family had been willing. One can only guess as to whether the unwilling were among the first to find fault with the care received. Me? I hypothesize a correlation.

It reminds me somehow of an experience I had as a young planner. For a project we had, the firm sent me to interview a young doctor of theology who was serving his ministry by managing an assisted care facility owned by his church. The talk turned to the topic of family visitation.

“Would you like to know?” he said, “who are the most pleased with, and who are the most heartbroken over visits from their family?”

I assumed it had to do with frequency of visits.

“No,” he said. “If a child says he or she can only come, say every two weeks, but makes that visit on schedule without fail, a parent is satisfied. But some promise weekly visits and miss half the appointed times. I’ve seen an elderly person sit with a packed suitcase waiting in the lobby for a weekend visit home, only to be forgotten.” That’s what brings heartaches, including to those who have to watch it.”

We’ll never know if Hazel even knew when her daughter visited. If she did, she knew one thing. She could count on it.

The Galilean knows that I am a “cultural Christian” and not a literal one. But I do believe in saints who walk this earth.

I’m married to one.

Yeah. I've been lucky.

Sunrise With Schubert: February 21, 2018

Ever have a tough week? I have. When it happens, I go back and watch videos of Kristallnacht, or 9-11, then to St. Jude’s website where I normally make a contribution.

This may be one of those weeks. It’s shaping up to be a dandy, so I may extend my Plädoyer für Stärke (plea for strength for which our Jewish brothers and sisters must have wished) generosity to the Southern Poverty Law Center as well. I might even extend the salve of serenity to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. Bestowments can sanctify, as I have always found.

Like I say, it’s not looking good, though. This week. I’m in line for an adult dose it seems.

First, our country is still reeling from a national tragedy. Instead of comforting one another, we have divided into camps and the “insults of blame” grow more furious and frivolous with each passing hour. Whereas we once had leaders who offered healing words in times like this, this “new batch of railroad bums” seems to revel in our discord. Few people look to religion for common healing anymore because, it seems to me, that so few people seem to worship grace and love in these bewildering times. I’m sure that both the Galilean and the Apostle would weep to hear Franklin Graham speak for them.

And, our part of the country is facing a deluge that may evoke a minor Katrina or Harvey. The first day of the rain event has already flooded ground that was already soaked and we have four more days to go. The weather, in recent years, has become a monster of extremes and shows no signs whatsoever of forgiving us for our sins against its planet.

On a personal level, our familial responsibilities have entered a new and more despairing phase. The fact that it was inevitable and expected doesn’t lessen the pain.

My body aches of a morning. The spirit of T.S. Eliot just walked by, mocking me with:

“I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”

Pardon me. I need to take a break.

Back now. Just walked into the bedroom to get a robe when a rain-darkened sky allowed just enough light to illuminate the face of my dear companion, still sleeping. She must have been dreaming of pleasant times. We have, after all, had our share. She smiled in sleep, and the glow of it slapped me in the face like a blast of warming heat on a frozen field.

Suddenly, I was beautiful again.

Now, where’s my ZZ Top CD and that dad-blasted checkbook?

"Suck it up Jocko.
We'll always have Wattensaw."
That always helps.

Morning Thoughts: December 9, 2017

It was my turn for caretaking last evening. My wife went our condo in Little Rock and I stayed at the farm with mother-in-law. Started out rough. I had to issue some demerits for untoward behavior. Didn’t work. Then I tried shame. “You promised us you would behave.”

“I had my fingers crossed,” with a mischievous smile. Then she sang “Santo Claus is Coming To Town,” for the 32^nd time that day. Next, we went through the litany of what each sibling was doing. They have all died, but we went through the list again anyway, for the fourth or fifth time that day.

It’s challenging, caring for someone who’s memory has deserted them. On the one hand, it is pleasant to think they are being cared for and that they are comfortable, well-fed, and free from work and worry. On the other hand, it’s like looking through a window toward a magnificent view that is blocked by a thick and permanent layer of fog. The beauty is there, somewhere, but we’ll never see it again.

There was only one thing left to do last night. That was to play our favorite game, the one that we play when we are alone. I call it “Name That Hymn,” and it works like this. I love playing the guitar, although I’m not very good at it at all. Old church hymns lend themselves to the finger-picking style that I’ve been trying to master for 40 years with very little result. I am to the point, though, that the hymns I play are recognizable to someone who grew up with them.

So I play. She listens, and tries to identify the song, hence the name of the game. Last night she was “in the zone.” Didn’t miss a one. That’s remarkable for someone who can’t remember that her own father passed away nearly 50 years ago.

Sometimes she’ll perseverate for a short time in naming the hymn. That’s a medical term from the root “persevere,” and it refers to “getting stuck” on some thought. When it happens, every song might be “In the Sweet By and By,” for a while. Last night, though, she moved right through from “I’ll Fly Away,” to “The Soul of Man,” batting a thousand. I couldn’t even fool her with seculars like “Maggie,” or “The Old Spinning Wheel.” And remembered more of the words to “Grandfather’s Clock” than I did.

It was a splendiferous time, all in all. Then my fingers got sore and we watched “Scrooge.”

I read somewhere that they are using music help ease the symptoms and pain of dementia. I hope so. I’ve been trying it. I caught her once listening to some hymns being sung on YouTube. I videoed a short segment, and spent two days fiddling with Adobe Premier Pro (a highly complicated and confusing profession film-making software), just to pass the time and exercise my own brain. Here it is, an altogether amateurish and rocky piece of work but, most of all, an act of love. That helps with most things.

Morning Thoughts: November 26, 2017

Had an interesting experience the other day while taking my turn at caregiving. Our ward doesn’t care much for television as a rule. She says she never “got to watch it” although we both remember her calling us on Saturday nights years ago to make sure we were watching Are You Being Served? on “Channel Two.” Woe unto us if we weren’t.

Anyway, day before yesterday, I walked in and flipped on the TV to find the marvelous film adaptation of Betty Smith’s famous A Tree Grows in Brookland had just started on the classic movie station.

Apparently, my wife had told her mother what was on, so she came in briskly and let me know that, not only was A Tree Grows In Brookland on, but that she had seen it before and remembered it. Further, she was just going to sit down and watch it again with me.

And she did. Small victories make the trials of caregiving worthwhile.

Morning Thoughts: November 4, 2017

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of caregiving. My friends know why. It is a duty and gift that can drain and inspire, both at once. This is so true when one is discussing the care of the elderly.

It is not an easy thing to do. It is one of those challenges that, as described by my Sainted Mother, “you just have to back your ears and do it.”

The medical profession defines “caregiving” as: "… the act of providing unpaid assistance and support to family members or acquaintances who have physical, psychological, or developmental needs. Caring for others generally takes on three forms: instrumental, emotional, and informational caring. Instrumental help includes activities such as shopping for someone who is disabled or cleaning for an elderly parent. Caregiving also involves a great deal of emotional support, which may include listening, counseling, and companionship. Finally, part of caring for others may be informational in nature, such as learning how to alter the living environment of someone in the first stages of dementia.”

We modern Americans differ on the concept. Some, in agreement with the current Catholic Pope, stick to the ancient admonition that we should minister to those who mourn or are poor in spirit, and that we should be merciful to others and makers of peace. Others of us don’t.

Historians of Christianity, from what I’ve read, attribute a strong allegiance to caregiving among the early Christians. It seems that they were known for their strong sense of concern for the welfare of one another. Further, mercy and compassion, it seems, formed strong components of that caregiving.

I’m talking here of the very earliest of Christians, when the movement was still a cult. It existed before (1) the writings of Saul of Tarsus, later “the Apostle Paul,” (2) the writings of the gospels, (3) the selection and arrangement of the gospels by a bunch of elderly men self-appointed to the task, (4) the design of a male-dominated and hegemonic administrative structure to carry out the intents of the latter so-called “Christians,” and (5) the ultimate epochal movements that allowed individual reading and interpretation of Christianity’s most sacred texts.

Each of us is free to form our own analysis and opinion concerning the evolution of Christianity and its acceptance of the ancient warning to care for “the least of those among us.”

Let us return to the medical definition of caregiving. I’m struck by the passage that “caregiving also involves a great deal of emotional support, which may include listening, counseling, and companionship.” Until one has found themselves, their friends, or their families in the position of caregiving, one can’t appreciate the toll that it takes on the giver. Ofttimes, that person needs caregiving as much as the actual patient. Perhaps that is why such a large portion of America’s population chooses not to be bothered.

There is a temptation to compare providing care to the elderly to providing care for children. “They took care of you when you were young. You take care of them when they get old.” While it is true that some demands, such as tending the very helpless, maintaining constant vigilance, and the testing of patience are similar, one difference hovers over the process like a cloud over a lonely mountain. The care of a child can lead to a brighter future, a family, and a treasure trove of waiting memories: achievements, graduations, weddings, and careers.

The care of the elderly leads “only to the grave.”

The world's best caregiver

Evening Thoughts: October 12, 2017

Wish ya’ll could have watched the Lady Hazel (aka “The Last Fan at Woodstock”) and me tonight. La Jefa flew to Houston for a much-deserved night off and we were at the farm with no adult supervision. You know what that means. I grabbed an electric guitar and cranked up an amp loud. There was nobody to stop us. I practiced my finger-picking and we played “Name That Hymn" for all the dogs and cats. Jeez, but we had fun.

Hazel’s had a rough week memory-wise, but tonight, full alert-mode returned. She only missed naming two hymns. They were ones I did a particularly awful job on. She even sang along on most. She remembered a few I was rusty on and I have marching orders to get to work on them. Here's one she particularly seems fond of. It's called Send the Light, a good-old-goodun' that I had fogotten about. I won't make that mistake again.

Periodically she reminisced on some of the music this old house had heard over the last 87 years, how her folks used to move the living room furniture to one side on Saturday nights and invite friends over to dance. She told me how someone took a wagon to Carlisle when she was a young child and returned with the organ that had belonged to her mother's family. It is still in our possession and soon to be installed in a new place of honor. She seemed pleased that we still have it.

I have some info on how they are using music as therapy for victims of dementia. I think there may be some truth to it. It sure worked tonight.

Eventually, my fingers got sore, she got sleepy, the animals got bored, and we just about ran out of tunes. What was I to do after two hours of hymns, a stiff back, and a set of blackened finger tips? Obviously, I settled for a Jameson and three cubes with memories of a night I’ll never forget.

Still game for whatever.