Brainstorming

I am feeling a bit more positive than I was in this morning’s post, Dad got up for a while around 2pm, I laid on the couch dozing on and off, keeping my eyes and ears on alert. He fell on Wednesday, big gash on his head, poor Pops.

It happened while his caregiver was here, she called me saying there has been an accident. I believe the first thing you should tell a loved one is that the patient is OK before you dump the accident stuff on them. It keeps from shaving a couple years off their lifespan, because, as a family member, your heart just falls out of your chest when you hear,

” Hello, Ms. Kiko? There has been a terrible accident…”

What is the first thing you think of? Yup, I thought so: That he is dead or maimed or otherwise terribly injured.

So, I had been dropping off a painting at the Art Gallery, so I raced the 10 miles to the hospital in rush hour traffic, all the while telling myself that, as a law abiding Christian, I should be setting a good example and pleasing God by obeying the speed limit. I really tried, and I do always try, but that is a difficult task when your Dad is lying helpless and afraid in an Emergency Room.

I hit the Hospital doors at a trot, had my ID already in hand to be checked in, and rushed down the hall to his bedside, ready to find him at death’s door.

Of course, the scene that greeted me was quite different!

“Hiya there! Where have you been?”, he laughs with a big smile.

He smiles his most charming at the cute little nurse who is taking his blood pressure.

“Are you Ok, Dad? I heard you had a bad fall!”

He looks at me quizically, “Did I?”

I could just pinch him, but he looks so little and frail in the big hospital bed, so I kiss him on the cheek instead. Now I can see the big gash on his scalp, and blood all over the pillow. Oh, my, I think, here we go again. I just cannot bear him spending any time in this hospital, this is the place where he fell twice in May, the place that caused him so much anguish mentally, the hospital that hastened his Alzheimer’s Disease and broke his spirit, and the place where I had to face the reality of my losing him. Imminent. On the Horizon.

I hate that hospital. I told Dad’s doctor that I am trying to sue them for what they had done to him, and the doctor brings me back to reality: I am going to do whatever is necessary to get your Dad better from this fall…

Now I feel like a real heel, like that wasn’t what I wanted too?

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs:

  I DO NOT WANT TO FEEL THIS!!!!

I DO NOT WANT TO WATCH MY FATHER DIE!!!

WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS FALL TO ME? TO SEE MY PARENTS, TO SEE THE PEOPLE I NEED, THE PEOPLE I LOVE, TO SEE THEM ALL LEAVING?

TO SEE THEM ALL DYING.

TO BE LEFT HERE all alone.

But, I did not say anything except , Ok. Thank You.

Now you understand a little more why I am so tired today, this month, this year.

Each day that goes by I feel a little more dead myself,

all tied up in my solitary cell, watching my life pass by.

I know deep inside that I want to do this, and I want to be with Daddy till the end. I just get so lonely at times. But I don’t mean to sound bitter. I am grateful for everyday I have. Just feeling a bit sorry for myself tonight. It will get better- I promise!

I will place my burdens on Jehovah tonight, He will hear my cries for help. I will pray in Jesus dear name, and Jehovah will breath new endurance into me.

His promises will all come true.

the dustbowl.

It is very dry here in South Florida. I mean popcorn-fart dry. I do not enjoy these droughts we have, I am sure no one else does. I find it particularly painful to watch all the foliage crisping up while I sprinkle my whole Social Security check’s worth of water onto it. In futility, like a dog chasing it’s tail.

I save what I can, moving the plants who still have a chance into shady areas, and setting up areas close to the water hose where I can set the most fragile ones, to be watered daily. We have a very large lot for this area, I like to see the astonishment on my friend’s faces when I show them my backyard garden with the most enormous oak they have ever seen. And my most beautiful gardens. Actually it is God’s garden, I just tend it.

I have been very fortunate to have worked with a Master Gardener in a Paradise called Sailfish Point on the very southernmost tip of Hutchinson Island. His name was Lynn, and he knew the nuts and bolts of every plant that grows here. How to grow it, feed it, water and prune it, until it gives the most glorious display. And I tried, every day, to absorb some small kernel of his knowledge. Any tree or flower growing on that golf course was fair game for me to take a seedling, a cutting, a pod- even an entire plant-if Lynn gave me the green light. This property has some interesting specimen plants who had their roots (ha ha!!) on Sailfish Point. This is a favorite of mine, he called it a “Pine Palm”, and I have only ever seen these near the ocean.

It actually looks much better than it did when this was taken- I have since learned to keep the centers of each group of fronds as dry as possible, or they start to rot. I eventually had to prune the whole near left section off for this very reason. I had not noticed in time that my sprinkler was dropping exactly over the center of that bunch of fronds. The tree frogs told me about it. I believe that, on the wind-swept dunes near the beach where this species grows naturally, the stiff ocean breeze would keep these trees quite dry. One thing I did learn when landscaping: Pay attention to the plants natural surroundings, and plant in as similar a position as you can.

This means that if your new shrub came from the sunny side of a slope, but under a tree that shades it in the late afternoon, then you should give it a well-drained west facing partially shaded spot. Shady in the late afternoon, that is. And pay attention to the soil where your specimen came from. Sand? Deep moist black earth? (Boy, I wish we had that here!!! That is what Pennsylvania earth is like, in the western Appalachian foothills.)

Anyway, I digress. Just be an observant gardener, and your results will please you and make all your girlfriends jealous when they come over for coffee. Another great trick to fool them into thinking you are a master gardener is to find some cheap, aged pots and planters from a Thrift store and fill them with good potting mix and fresh. blooming annuals from a nursery. Then just make sure to tend to these three or four, moving them from place to place near your front walkway or doorstoop (stoop?) (stop?) area. Even if the rest of your yard looks like poo, keep tending these few- Miracle Grow anyone?-and you will blow them all away with your mad skills. Observe:

See how the yard is pretty plain behind my little front patch of flowers? I am SO sneaky! I rearrange the pots as some flowers fade or I just have a whim, taking the shabby looking pots around back to be reworked at a later date.

And I just love taking objects that totally look like they do not belong outside and placing them around my garden for focal points. Broken plates (pretty ones) make nice edging, old chairs you were going to throw away make a great plant stand with a coat of bright spray paint!

That old carved owl was a throw away from a friend- I kept it in the garden till it just fell all apart. and we had bunches of leftover ceramic tile from when I did the house, so Dad started using it to edge the beds, and it looks pretty spiffyI Has been fun sharing this with you all, I feel ready for my own T.V. show now:

” The Sneaky Crafty Artsy Lady Gardener Show”!

I am keeping my prayers focused on Jehovah’s promises for a new world where righteousness will dwell, and where there will be no more pain, suffering, war or death. I pray that we can all be there one day soon.! I’m ready to live in a peaceful world!

Goodnight!

Muncie Spumoni

We love our pets, don’t we? When you have no children, and you are trapped for 10 years in a house with elderly, sick and dying parents your pets come to have a whole new meaning to you. I always was loopy about them, and as time has gone on my family and I have raised passels of kitties, feral and tame, and a couple dozen dogs and pups have held my heart over the years.

Then there is Munson or Muncie Spumoni, also known as Little Big Ears as a kitten and then Spoops as he matured. He is a wonderment, and a more loving,intelligent kid there has never been.

Spoops in a drawer. 2008

Munson arrived here at the house as a teeny-weeny days-old kitten with his 2 sisters after being gently placed in our newspaper bin by his feral Mom cat, Teddy. Teddy was one of a large colony of feral cats who my Mom had been spaying, neutering and working on taming for the years after our moving to Florida in 1984. Back then there were no organizations taking an interest in wild cats, Mom did it out of love and a sense of duty to help these abandoned and discarded animals who were left here by snowbirds and vacationers when it was time to head back North. Our house backs up to a large 55 plus trailer park where most of the tenants only winter here. So the colony was about 20 cats in the early days.

Munson instantly has a special place in Mom’s life. With 2 huge ears the size of satellite dishes, he was a strikingly beautiful kitten with his brilliant white blaze, socks and belly on a black tabby background. He also bears a little “light” in the tip of his extraordinarily long tail, a white beacon that my brother Eric always called his “landing lights”. He was really stinkin’ cute! (and is.). His litter mates were little girls, Ebony: a psychotic coal-black cat with 1 white hair at her breast, and Tiggy: another hot mess of gleaming black with  a true psychotic streak. (Possible sign of inbreeding?) At any rate these two would like to bite you hard as let you pet them. (Ebony used to gag when Mum would run her fingernail along the edge of the flea comb- where was YouTube back then?) Then there was Gretchen, a dainty tiny cat like her mother who danced along like a ballerina, light as air on her tiptoes, with a tiny meow you could barely hear.

But Muncie and Mom were inseperable, and when Mom was fighting the cancer, he would lay right next to her thru $%#! and high water, letting her pour out her tears into his glowing fur. He would have the most loving look on his face, as if he were the size of an Siberian Tiger and could carry Mommy off into the forest, away from all the torment and pain. Munson. Dear Munson, and dear Mom. He spent those years as faithfully as any Lab you have ever heard about sleeping by their master’s bed. She would hold him in her arms and stare down into his face, saying,”muncie. Muncie.” and kissing him a thousand times on his white striped nose. One of the last things she asked me to do was to, “Take care of my Muncie for me…Please take care of Muncie for me.” Of course I promised. (Like she had to ask…Oh, Mom…)

Well, now Munson has come to the end of his life. His nutty sister Ebony died 2 weeks ago, and I’m sure it was typical kitty old age, where the kidneys just shut down and she stopped eating and drinking. She lingered about 5 days before sleeping herself away. All this was happening while Dad was in the Hospital, so I grieved for her,but not as much as I am for Muncie.

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Fast forward three days, I had to stop writing because I was crying too hard, and the grief exhausted me. Poor dear Muncie still lingers on the brink of the great beyond, and I have crumbled. I wanted to let him die here at home, i hate it when we put an pet down at the vets office-they are so frightened. But the stress of losing him by drips and drabs has cost me my sanity, having to hide his dying from Dad, who just goes to pieces over these events. So I have been disappearing every 5minutes to go hold Muncie, carrying him to all his favorite places in the yard and house. I can sound just like Mom when I try, and when I speak her love talk to him he looks up with his blinded eyes with such adoration.

I never fully appreciated how truly magical he is… until now. I knew he was special, and I loved him dearly; I stopped short of giving him my heart completely, out of fear of the pain that would surely come i  the future. Last night, however, I gave my heart to him completely, when at 3in the morning I awoke with him snugly settled in my arms, head resting on my chest. Somehow, as weak as he is, he climbed up the side of the bed, out of the basket of towels on the floor, into my warm embrace. I will never forget that act of devotion as long as I live. Oh my…

Today I just can not allow him to go on like he is, so frail he is barely breathing, dragging himself to the door so h can go lay on the cool cement where the garden hose drips, trying to quench the unquenchable thirst that death brings.  Somehow he had willed himself to Dad’s door, and in his dementia, Father let him outside a little while ago, and did not realize how sick the poor kid is. I just can’t let him die alone, although that is probably what his instincts tell him to do. No, the mother in me wants to hold him to the last.

Aren’t we humans a useless lot when it comes to the animals. Here I am, refusing to let him do what he wants to, even at the end of his faithful 18 years as our pet. And now trying to be humane after letting him linger for a week, for a reason I am not even sure he feels? Do I take him down there to the vets now, can I keep myself from collapsing if I let him die here?

Oh God, I wish I knew. The stress is crippling me, as is the grief.

I want to run so far away from all this pain, and leave Dad and all the animals here where they can’t hurt me anymore.

But that is not what Mommy’s do.

That is not who I am.

Jehovah made the animals instinctively wise, and He loves them even more than we do, because He created them. He gives them their gifts to be our companions, our comforters, our friends. It is my human failings that give me all this doubt, all this worry. Munson is not crying out in pain or sorrow. He showed me last night who the wiser one is. And he said goodbye already too. It is me who has to let him go…

I want to live again, with his memory to keep my heart warm.

Goodbye, Muncie Spumoni.

PS. I just cancelled the appointment to have him euthanized, I will let him pass here, with his sister and me and Dad, and the only home he has ever known. He is a great cat.

That Brave Girl

this is not the one i am entering. this is titled “Angry Daughter”.

The decision to enter my painting in an art show at a real art gallery was easy to make. I believe I am being motivated by fear, having learned while Pops was in hospital that I will basically be destitute after he dies or if he must be placed in a home. I had always hoped that I could make a living with my art, knew I could, really, but I never wanted to let anyone see it. It isn’t that I am ashamed, it is just so personal. That is my heart on the canvas, my veins torn open, my blood on the page.

I never wanted to sell out. to allow complete strangers to dissect my innermost thoughts, to critique my self expression. My life has been so full of can’ts:

You aren’t a boy, Susan. You can’t play ball like that.

You can’t just draw from your imagination- you must be trained properly.

You can’t go to art school, it is not realistic.

You are too sensitive, you can’t take everything to heart.

YES I CAN!!!!

The latest critic in my life is an elderly aunt, who believes she has my best interest at heart by terrifying me about my future. She wan’ts me to look into selling my antiques, selling my china, selling my whole sense of home and safety in preparation for the big nothingness that she keeps reminding me that looms ahead when Dad dies.

I try very hard to be smilingly pleasant on the phone with her, but it is the most negative words she can say. She totally does not understand my bipolar disorder or depression. I absolutely CAN NOT focus on what MIGHT happen. I will dwell on it, I will obsess about it, and if I am not careful, I will drink and drug over it. Her constant warnings of doom will be a self fulfilling prophecy for me.

Afterward

I was on my own for many years without any material possessions, and those were some of the most meaningful years of my life. Meaningful in that I learned how to survive happily with nothing, that I appreciated every single meal, blanket, pot, pan, article of clothing, tree, water faucet, sunrise- and every single human being who crossed my path.

I was much younger, sure, but I learned how to SURVIVE. And I succeeded.

Jesus had no place to lay his head- he lived by faith. He lived free, and appreciated all His Father’s blessings. He did not fear not knowing where he would sleep, what he would eat, and the Bible counsels us to follow in his footsteps.

I do not want to sell Mom’s china, and I won’t. If I have to eat dog food on it in the dark, then that is what I will do. I will use my considerable brain function to keep my head above the proverbial water, but not by selling the things I hold dear, or by giving into fear of what may or may not happen.

virginia rose antique china

after I lost 70 pounds in 2010! (now I have to lose it again!!)

If something good can come out of my anger at her doubt in me, it is that I am taking a leap of faith and taking my painting to the Gallery.

And I might just take a binder on my writings to an editor while I am at it!

So thank you Auntie Doubtful for the motivation. I remember that I am still the brave girl who jumped on a freight train and rode across Arizona, hitchhiked through 6 states, dumpster dove for greasy Mcdonald’s burgers, and that they tasted like T-bones!

I am the brave girl who worked 27 jobs in 25 years, rigged for the crane building Missle Silos, worked with Belgians and Shires and Clydesdales and Andalusians, and groomed the Atlanta Police department’s horses, learned to decorate cakes and operate forklifts, did lawn maintenance and worked on the tip of an island in the Atlantic. I have befriended train tramps and illegal immigrants, and helped a 15 year old Mexican kid hide in a grain car to get to his uncle’s house, his only relative in this world! I have accepted gifts of food, and given some, accepted rides and given many, and I have loved and believed in the very best of my fellow man, and I also believe in myself.

I am the brave girl who survived rape ad beatings, being stabbed and shot at, falling in holes and having horses roll on me, having a riding lawnmower flip over on me, divorcing a dangerous man, jail, drug addiction, alcoholism, hepatitis C, and the death of my beloved Mom, and losing my sanity, and I am still standing, even if it is crooked.

I am that brave girl, and I am a survivor.

That Brave Girl!

We Are Home…Aren’t We?

He sleeps hours on end while I fret.

He sits up in a recliner while I cook and fret.

He gets up to pee, yep, I fret.

He fights me over using his walker, my fretting heart pounds, fretting hands shake.

He is sad that he scared me, I feel guilty for that-and that makes me fret.

He smiles again, now back in bed, I try to lie down too.

I am fretting so much, I get up and clean,

” The visiting nurse will think I am an unfit caregiver…”

” The health department will take Dad away…”

” I better make more jello…”

Fretting, I twist my hands together and bite my lip.

” I must rest! Lay down and rest Kiko! Ok, ok I will…”

“Just as soon as I mop that backroom, there was a spot of kitty puke…”

” Oh, and there…oh, and there…there…there.”

” I really must quit fretting and lie down, I am exhausting myself…”

I lie down on the couch, heart pounding, back burning, mind racing.

Willing myself to rest I feel the room move away, and a warm cloud embrace.

Breathing slows, muscles begin to loosen and sleep is at the door…

He wakes up…I leap up, fretting that he will fall before I get there.

My mind feels like it is full of silver needles in a messy pile,

the needles are the shiny lines where my thoughts should be.

When they find us on the floor, which one will be on the bottom?

Fretting, I go change into clean knickers just in case.

Except I don’t have any, cause I have been fretting to much to wash.

I would have to leave him, and go outside to the washer.

He looks up from his cushy pillow, under the nicest comforter.

He says, “I love you.”

“Sit down now, and rest.”

The fretting stops, the faith flows in, and I lie down next to Dad,

and rest.

Changing Roles in a Changing Mind

   We have come to a crossroads in our lives as father and daughter. I have spent a good part of my life being my parents’ caregiver, both my Mom(rectal cancer) and Dad’s ( Dementia/Alzheimer’s). While their suffering has been extensive I am going to focus a bit on the changes a Codependent-Bipolar-Recovering Addict/Alcoholic with Disabilities-Caregiver faces(which, by the way is me.).

When I moved back home in 1997 Mom and Dad were in good health.  Mom was 61 and recently diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes, but even being about 40 pounds overwieght she was working at Breakers (their Billiard Parlor) and enjoying her life. Aside from a jagged relationship with an unreasonable husband and cranky recovering daughter, Mom was upbeat and cheerful. We really rekindled our friendship and became inseperable.

At this point I was SO happy to be home with them both, back from such a tumultuous marriage. Mentally I was bouncing from elation to depression, and trying so hard to change the things around the house that did not suit my taste. I wanted to move furniture, paint rooms, throw junk away- basically disrupt their whole cozy world. I tried so hard to gain Dad’s approval, an impossibility though it proved to be. As a rebellious hellion I fought often with Dad, huge arguments and obscenities exchanged, which upset my Mom to no end.

As I spent time in 12 step life, I changed and after a year sober sought mental health counselling at a nearby state funded facility on an outpatient basis. With a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and proper medication my raging moods changed slowly. I learned to be tolerant, accepting of shortcomings in myself and others, making my ammends and dumping years of grudges and resentment into my mental trash dump. My Higher Power took the refuse and threw it away for me, and a huge burden was lifted and I eventually was relieved of the compulsion to get high/drunk.

It took years of work, and after working at Breaker’s for a few years it was time to spread my wings a little. I got a job at a counselling center as a driver, and was exposed to people in Recovery forty hours a week. I had free access to addiction counsellor advice, reading material, and began studying codependency among other issues. I took clients to 12 step meetings a couple nights a week, got a great sponsor and worked the steps like a lion. I saw first hand the ravages of addiction in the faces of new clients I picked up at the airport as they flew into our sunny skies to get clean and sober in the great state of Florida. They were so, so sick and broken, just as I had been such a short time before.

Sharing my “story” at AA meetings was cathartic, purging myself of excess baggage, but mostly focussing on upbeat positive changes in sobriety. I started a Gratitude journal, and kept my thoughts written down each day as I morphed into a citizen.  My relationships at home mellowed, and I was milder, kinder, and Mom and Dad responded. We had familial peace for the first time in the 25 years of my ative addiction. I felt so indebted to my parents, and felt I just had to show them how sorry I was , how changed I was. It became a driving force in my life, and my new obsession.

And the Codependent wheel kept right on spinning, gaining momentum with each passing year…(to be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deep Breath In…and hold…Breath Out.

Wouldn’t it be funny if, after really impressing on the Doctor how awful I feel, all the new tests showed nothing! It seems to often be that way with me, to the point that my integrity (and sanity….) come into question when the results are discussed. If this new round of X-rays, Echocardiogram and venous Doppler Ultrasound are all inconclusive, Dr. B. will most likely have the little white bus drop by the house with 2 giant white-garbed nurse-like gentlemen to escort me out to said van. A little dose of Thorazine and off I would go to nappie land. Sounds good to me right now:).

I must hold on tight, glory in the good and golden days, when the sky is filled with puffy white balls of cotton and a background of brightest blue. Days when a cool glass of homemade sweet tea tastes like the elixer of life.

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Ahhhhhh. What a dream, even if it is whimsical.,.

My Life’s Work

I have not been going out preaching, the God-given work I love. As one of Jehovah’s dedicated Witnesses, I have promised to tell my fellow man about “the good news from God”. I must help them learn to take in accurate knowledge from the Bible, to put faith in the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, to repent from past mistakes. Then, when they are ready, I can be there when they are baptized and dedicated to serving Jehovah, right alongside the rest of us.

Many people who are opposed to Jehovah’s Witnessed don’t know why we go door to door, or out in the ministry as we call it. They wonder why we would do something so annoying as bothering people at their homes. There actually is a very good reason to do this, one that is designed to help even the people who don’t like us:

We do it out of Love. Love for Jehovah God, and love for our fellow man.

God’s inspired Word, The Bible, explains when it says, at the book of Matthew 22:37,38,

“He said to him:”You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment.”

( If I love God this way, then I will obey Him, to make him happy.) Then the Scriptures go on to say, in Matthew 22:39,

” The second, like it, is this: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”

( Here I believe that I must love my fellow man as my own brother, and so doing, I must do what ever I can to help him, to save his life. Because I love Jehovah, I will try to save even people who hate me, because God does not want anyone to be destroyed. So, just as I would throw my neighbor a life preserver if he were drowning-I will knock on his door and give him the life saving message( of God’s means of salvation from a dying world) that God has commanded me to give.)

This answers people who just think that J.W.’s are crazy to go door to door, that we are just there to aggravate them. We come to do a life saving work, out of love. And our door to door preaching was even commanded by Jesus, who gave us an example to follow. The Bible says, at Matthew 28:19,20,

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you.”

( If Jesus commanded me to go out and make disciples, then I must teach others to go out and do the same thing, and they will teach their students,etc., etc….)

And if someone I talk to still thinks I could just put a sign out, the Bible, God’s inspired Book of directions, describes the disciples of Jesus Christ doing this witnessing work centuries ago. In the Bible book of Acts, chapter 20, verse 20, we read,

“…while I did not hold back from telling you any of the things that were profitable nor from teaching you publicly and from house to house. But I thoroughly bore witness both to Jews and to Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus.”

Also, this method of preaching is again mentioned in Acts 5:42, where the apostle Paul writes under inspiration,

” And every day in the temple and from house to house they continued without letup teaching and declaring the good news about the Christ, Jesus.”

Today, Jehovah’s Witnesses have other avenues of preaching available, for instance, a handicapped person like myself can write letters or call people locally. I have even found the courage to witness to my neighbor’s right here, on my own blog. All I know is that I love Jehovah, and I love you all out there, too.

It would be wonderful if I could meet you someday in Paradise, and find out that you came to know Jehovah after you read some lady’s blog. But even if I never know someone that I preach to, I do know that Jehovah’s will shall be done. That one day wars will cease, and wickedness will not be found anymore. Dead ones will rise from their graves and live again with their families, on an Earth that is no longer dying or polluted. Animals of all kinds will lose their fear of mankind and each other, and a child will be able to pet a lion and come to no harm. No one will ever have to feel pangs of hunger, of cry out of loneliness or fear, or pain.

Children won’t die of cancer anymore, neither will anyone die in war. Food will grow, water will be drinkable, love will flourish.

We will know what true happiness is, for the first time.

I hope we are there together. May you find peace, love and rest from your weary road, my neighbor…

after all: Jehovah loves us.

A Poem Written for a Forgotten Reason…by S. T. Martin

Ode to my Father who Alzheimer’s took: A filthy thief, a nasty crook.

A man much adored by I, obscured by madness, left to die.

I care for him in his disappearance-vivid, charismatic, brilliant, delirious.

He who counted the planets, could name all the stars,

Now his stare’s distant like he’s gazing at Mars.

Oh, my dear Father,who Alzheimer’s took: You dirty thief! You evil crook!

Why did you steal my dear old dad? Leave me lonely-going mad!

I care so deeply, lost so much, do I now feel your demon touch?

Sometimes I sit alone to think, thoughts evaporate before I blink!

A family’s legacy of madness owned, no one here now, all alone.

Will I forget to wipe my chin? Neglect to wash the clothes I’m in?

Or, perchance, will someone see: find me in darkness, care for me.

Lead us through dementia’s night, help to cure this cruel  blight!

Or are all our children due to bear their aging parents’ Alzheimer’s care?

 c.S.T. Martin, April 27, 2015

Inertia

Life in a  funeral parlor is very boring. Father sleeps all day now. He was always a napper, and absolutely loves to sleep. Perhaps it was an escape for him years ago, a way to avoid dealing with Mom or us kids.

A big part of his nappiness is sleep apnea, which wasn’t even heard of years ago. In the 1990’s Mom convinced him to see the doctor about his constant sleepiness, and he had a sleep study done. It was found that my Dad has one of the most severe cases of sleep apnea that the doctor had ever seen. It was incredible, the number of times he quits breathing in an hour. So finally we had an answer to why our father was always trying to “catch up” on sleep, making us tiptoe about the house each day when he was lying down. I coined the nickname “Sir Nap-a-lot” for him, which he did not find amusing, but we all thought was very funny and accurate.

Fast forward 50 years, and here if my Dad now with severe Alzheimer’s and Dementia.

From the research being done insomnia and lack of restorative sleep are key factors in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. This is no surprise to me, having watched my Dad lie on the couch all hours of the day, waking more exhausted than before. Now his eyes glaze over twenty minutes after he gets out of bed, it’s all he can do to make it back to his room or over to the couch. It is especially bad after he eats, which has made me wonder about his blood sugar. He was prescribed one of those machines for people with Apnea, but he never, ever used it. He is totally non-compliant when it comes to stuff like that.

So, here I sit in this quiet house, dogs lying about on floor pillows and blankets, cats on beds,chairs and couches, and Dad laying wherever a space can be found-out like a light!

Do I nap?  Oh, I try. I tell myself I should try to live by Father’s schedule. so that I am not falling asleep when he is up and about. That doesn’t seem to make me sleep, though. I lay down and shut my eyes,but the mind races and the pain lies under my skin like an ever present organism, draining my life juices away. my nap time is spent turning this way, then that-stuffing pillows here, moving blankets there. Petting dogs, pushing cats off the bed, always listening for a movement in the next room.

cleopatra

I lay sometimes on my new (used) big red couch, such a pretty piece, and a great napper, and now and then I drift away. Dreaming of yesterdays, when my body moved and I was loved. Dreaming of giant grasshoppers eating my zinnias. Falling asleep to the sound of my silent prayers, prayers for God to send me an angel. An angel to stand over me and keep the bad things away while I rest.

Kiko-San Majestic

When I awaken, it is always time to perform a task, feed a father, a cat, a dog, a bird, a plant. Wipe a hand across blurry eyes, beg a brutalized body to creak to it’s sore feet. Teeter off, half bent over, to fry a sausage, crack an egg, sweep a mess, say a pleasant “good morning!”. He looks vacantly past me into the blazing day, sips old coffee and says, “I didn’t sleep at all. I’ll be going back to bed after breakfast. After lunch. After dinner. After snack. After everything, I will be going to bed.”

Ok. Me too.