Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Rachelle Gardner at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
Recent Posts
- Soul Train
- Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box
- Tears In A Bottle
- From The Young Mom I Once Was, To You
- I Can’t Help Falling
- What A Difference Ten Years Makes
- The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
- Where Have All The Years Gone
- Fun With Kiki Cullen
- Stuck On Mom
- Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered
- The Thrift of Grief
- Job Security
- The Party’s Over
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
Wind
The wind is fierce.
Racing through my grief,
No gentle breeze, this—
A terror, a portent, an omen,
Pulling limb from limbs.
Branches shorn:
Rip root from ground.
The winds, they pierce.
Devastating leaf,
Flowers and grass kiss—
Bent, bowed, then broken,
Light through storm cloud dims.
The veil is torn:
Sweet Spirit’s sound.
Ephemera, Part Two
Fifteen or twenty years ago, Mom hand-wrote all of Dad’s poetry (but WHERE are the originals, hmmm?) and had them printed and bound into simple books at Kinko’s. I think she said it cost her $1 per copy, and there were only enough copies for her and each of us five kids.
I’ll never forget that Christmas, for I could not have received a gift I loved more. I may share more of my father’s poems as time goes by, but here is the letter to Hallmark Cards (a Kansas City-based company, of course) that Mom wrote when she and Dad were engaged, in 1950. Mom was only twenty years old at the time.
I love it because it so clearly demonstrates the confidence she felt in this scrappy immigrant’s talents, in his future, in his potential. By the way, for those wannabe-published readers who wonder how long it takes to hear back on your writing submissions? Judging by the date on this letter, um, 61 years and counting!
Highland View Farm
Grandview, Missouri
June 19, 1950
Hall Bros., Inc.
2505 Grand
Kansas City, Missouri
Sirs:
In answer to your ad in Sunday’s paper for a verse writer, I would like to submit the enclosed poems written by a friend of mine. As you will see, these poems are written for special days such as birthdays, valentine day and Mother’s Day—-themes which are suitable for greeting cards.
My friend is a young Scotsman 28 years of age. He has a good character and education and studied poetry for recreation while in the Scotch regiment of the British army. He is very interested in getting a connection for selling his poems and has a real talent for writing for any occasion, both humorous and sentimental. He can write a poem quickly after getting an inspiration for a certain occasion.
I have great faith in his talent and would consider it a great favor if you would interview him concerning this. May I hear from you soon?
Yours truly,
(Miss) Mary Pattengale
Highland View Farm
Grandview, Missouri
Ephemera
When Mom needed to move into an assisted living facility nearly ten years ago, we closed down the family home where she had lived for forty years. Every effort was made at that time to get rid of the junk, give away the good stuff (because she had too much of it….), and take care of the important documents, photos, and other ephemera.
But we ran out of time. Mom’s hope chest, for instance, was not gone through. Instead, we packed up the contents in a Rubbermaid bin, moved it with her into her tiny apartment, and promised that one day soon, she and her five kids would sit down together and sort it out.
All these years later, and with Mom no longer a part of our Party of Six, we still haven’t gotten around to it. We plan to soon, though, perhaps when we siblings gather to celebrate Mom’s birthday in a couple of weeks from now. In the meantime, my brother has emptied the contents of a locked metal box and found a gem or two.
Here is the poem (or, I think I can more accurately say, drinking song….) my father and his immigrant shipmates wrote and performed aboard the M.S. John Ericsson, on their way from Scotland to New York City, in December of 1946. I’m typing it out exactly as it appears on this 65-year-old piece of paper.
Finding this puts the capstone on how it is to be a first-generation American, the daughter of a Scot. I hope you get a kick out it, too.
“John Ericsson Sailing Song”
(Sung to the tune of Glory, Glory Halleluya)
The bunch of us are sailing on the Johnny Ericsson
(Repeat two times)
And there isn’t a drink on the ship
CHORUS
Lordy Lordy what a helluva helluva ship
(Repeat two times)
Is the Johnny Ericsson
We wanted first class cabins but they put us in a bunk
People seasick right and left and lordy how it stunk
We’d rather be ashore and feeling very very drunk
Than sailing on the Johnny Ericsson
CHORUS
They had a dancing party and we thought it would be fun
But the ship was tossing madly and the phono wouldn’t run
The needle wasn’t sharp enough, the records they were bum
On the Johnny Ericsson
CHORUS
They organized the races and we all began to bet
The odds were pretty awful, and now we’re all in debt
The horses did the running, and the steward he did sweat
On the Johnny Ericsson
CHORUS
We sit around all evening and we try to pass the time
The U.S. gives us coke, but what we really want is wine
When they bring out the brandy then we’ll all be feeling fine
On the Johnny Ericsson
CHORUS
But in spite of all our grumbling we are here to sing tonight
And in the Christmas spirit it isn’t right to fight
So we’ll try to love the U.S. Lines with all our heart and might
On the Johnny Ericsson
LAST CHORUS (slowly with much feeling)
Glory, Glory what a lovely lovely ship
(Repeat two times)
Is the Johnny Ericsson
We’d like to thank the Captain and the Officers and Crew
They are good sports and what is more we know they’ll bring us to
America where most of us will start our lives anew
Cause we’re sailing on the Johnny Ericsson
REPEAT LAST CHORUS
Words by the John Ericsson passengers Glee Club. Song first introduced at M.S. “John Ericsson” Christmas party at Sea Dec 25, 1946
And You Think To Yourself
There are things you can block out and things you can’t.
There are times when God allows you, at least for a season, the grace of forgetfulness, the mercy of somnolence, the peace of oblivion—and times when He withholds these gifts. You may have no choice in this matter.
Sometimes, you don’t notice the nursing home smells (if you walk quickly by the room in question), the sounds of anguish (unless they are originating in the throat of your own mother), and the cries for help—-unless they arise from your very soul.
Sometimes, you overlook the way caregivers can manage (through some great feat of either ignorance or over-training in the fine art of selective seeing) to state over and over again, when you ask about your loved one’s obvious-to-you declining status: “No change.”
But then there are days—-those days when the long walk through the valley of the shadow of death seems even darker and deeper than before—-when you no longer have the luxury of numbness. Your senses are hyper-alert, if only because no one else’s are.
It may be on one of these days, oddly, that you hear the music. The pianist in the facility’s front lobby, whom you’ve managed to ignore for months on his Saturday visits because your own mother had no interest in such things, attracts you now that your mother-in-law has moved into the same building. You sit in a comfortable chair, just for a moment and without even meaning to, and soak up the strains of heaven snaking their insidious way through the hollowed-out valley of your spirit.
The gentleman plays “You Are So Beautiful To Me.” And you weep, remembering how your beautiful husband—-the man you rarely see because your mothers have become the focus of your lives—-played this song and sang it at a friend’s wedding decades ago, when you were young and the shadow had not yet fallen.
From that sweet song, the piano man transitions into crooning “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.” Just two short, eternal weeks ago, at your mother’s funeral, the video of her last big birthday party shone on the screen, this song the background music for the story of her life.
The old people gathered around today’s piano roll their wheelchairs forward and backward with the music and hum along, not recalling the words with anything approaching accuracy, but smiling with a joy at which you can only marvel.
And you can’t help but applaud, because you’re there and alive and there is music and it touches your soul like only a grace gift can.
You are seeing people now you never saw in the fourteen months your mother lived here. You are witnessing some vibrant old people, who still try their best to pick up on lyrics and rock themselves into a soothed lull while the music plays on, hearts steadfastly refusing to stop their arhythmic beating.
The piano player educates his few interested listeners by telling them the little story behind the writing of “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing.” He cannot sing well but it doesn’t matter, as they cannot hear well. But it’s a kind of music appreciation class and they pay rapt attention.
There is a community here, one your mother refused to join, and one your mother-in-law will not be able to appreciate now that her end, too, seems near.
You remember the sampler you cross-stitched for your mother-in-law the year you were married. “To Love And Be Loved Is The Greatest Joy On Earth.” How can it be that she’s now forgotten her own husband, dead these thirty-four years? And imagines that your husband—-her only son—-is “her guy”? The years have disappeared into a murky mist and cognition has grown wings, but she is still loved. And she still loves. It is indeed a many splendored thing.
“Isn’t there something else they could do for me to make me better?” she asks, during her only salient moment of the day. How do you answer that question, you who just watched your own mother die and could not stop or even slow the end of her unraveling life?
“They’re giving you good medicine,” you say, but you have lost your faith in medicine. You hope she doesn’t see the doubt that must be clouding your eyes.
Finally comes Danny Boy on the ivories, bringing with it the remembrance of every Irish wake you’ve ever attended, and by this time and at your age, they are legion.
“And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.”
.
You’ll leave here soon, stop by the cemetery where your mother now lies with your father and brother, and kneel upon the freshly turned earth. You’ll say an Ave there, and cross yourself with the holy water of your own falling tears. You’ll sing a verse of Danny Boy before turning away.
And then, in spite of everything you know about raw death and ragged-edged life, you’ll think to yourself, what a wonderful world.
And Wisdom To Know The Difference
I think it’s safe to say that since February 24, when Doug and I flew out of Kansas City to see our kids and grandkids, I’ve had toothbrush issues.
It was supposed to be a six-day trip—-very simple, very easy. Doug’s toothbrush is green and mine is purple. Knowing how things can get twisted and mixed in hotel rooms and even in the guest bathrooms of your own children, I tried to tell myself (and oh, how sexist this is of me!) that purple is a slightly more feminine color than green and so yes, my toothbrush was definitely the purple one.
God grand me the serenity….
But then I started, in the middle of vacation and my mother’s overlapping hospitalization and even while mind-wandering during her funeral (dreaming fondly of Spring and St. Patrick’s Day) lapsing into wondering if perhaps my toothbrush wasn’t the green one, after all. I am the more Irish of the two of us, and wouldn’t it make perfect sense for me to have risen up in the Toothbrush Wars for once and declared myself the possessor of the brush most representative of my proud ancestry?
I also noted that while Doug has never worn purple, it was darned possible that for his initial foray into the world of lilac and lavender and periwinkle, he actually picked the violet toothbrush of his own volition.
The last thing I remember, as far as my teeth go, is that yesterday morning I got up from pretending to sleep on a horrible couch in my mother-in-law’s hospital room (she entered the hospital with pneumonia on Monday after we buried my mother on Saturday….) and slouched down the hall to a public bathroom for a spit bath. I used the soap that is supposed to squirt out automatically when you hold your hand under the dispenser. and the paper towel that is supposed to emerge automatically when you wave your hand in front of the light, to automatically scrub the sticking points.
Then I pulled a comb through my scary hair, which did look good at Mom’s funeral but has not recovered its senses since, and applied deoderant with the name Speed Stick slapped on the front. It did occur to me that this is Doug’s deoderant, and that he was sleeping down the hall even then smelling sweetly of some concoction with the word “Soft” in it. Did I care? I did not.
To accept the things I cannot change…
What I cared about was my toothbrush. All I asked was to locate it in my go-bag, the bag I’ve been using for many weeks now to cart around the remaining scrappy vestiges of my life, and that when I located it, it would be dry.
Sure enough, I pulled the purple toothbrush from my bag, with the tube of paste I actually remembered subbing out for the one I emptied at last week’s hospital, and did my thing. Then I wrapped the wet toothbrush in another length of paper towel acquired from a final successful waving of my hand in front of the light and placed it back in my bag, ready for whatever life threw at my teeth next.
This morning, preparing to leave for my mother-in-law’s hospital to interview a hospice organization on her behalf, I knew it was time to locate my purple toothbrush once again. And I knew I had not removed it from my bag last night. But as I passed through the bathroom on my way to the bag, my glance fell on our ceramic toothbrush holder, with its two slots for only two toothbrushes.
Staring back at me was Doug’s green toothbrush, in its correct slot, and in my spot a purple toothbrush that looked like it had been through hell and back. I reached out and touched it and bristled. It was WET!
“Did you use my toothbrush?” I asked, in a rare conversation that didn’t include the words “power-of-attorney,” “funeral arrangements,” or “end-stage dementia.”
He gave me an innocent look, the type of look a man gives when he’s just had the luxury of using a toothbrush that started out dry. “I couldn’t remember if mine was purple or green.”
“Yours is green,” I said, with more confidence than I felt, since St. Patrick’s Day is tomorrow and my Irish is definitely up. “And it’s sitting right there in its correct slot, dry.”
“Yeah, about that,” he said. “I found my green one in your bag after I used the purple one.”
My blood boiled right about then. You should know, for future reference, that Toothbrush Angst is one of the least often mentioned but most often experienced Stages of Grief. When you are suffering a great loss, you want something—-anything, really—-you can call your own. Something you can fall back on, depend upon, rely on. For me, the comfort of my own toothbrush can get me through almost anything, and that small comfort was being torn from me with a force I could not comprehend.
“But that purple one doesn’t even look like my brush. The wet one you just used looks squashed and ancient and all used up, like I feel.”
“It’s brand new,” he said. “I just found it in the linen closet, still in its wrapper. It’s only been used once.”
OK, this I can at least wrap my brain around. I buy tons of cheapie toothbrushes because often, when my kids spend the night, they claim to have forgotten theirs. I hand them one of these disposables that I pick up for 20 cents and expect them to do just that when they’re done—-dispose of it.
“But where’s MY purple toothbrush?” I ask. And then it hits me that I must have left it, wrapped in its white paper-towel shroud, in yesterday’s public bathroom. Along with the Speed Stick man’s deoderent.
Courage to change the things I can…
Today is a new day, with new mercies and—-of all things—-a brand new toothbrush. This time, for safety’s sake, I’ve chosen a pink one. Purple is just too risky, too potentially uni-sexy, and I’ve got to control something in my life. At this point, anything would be fine.
Besides, Doug wouldn’t be caught dead in pink, not even a stripe’s worth in a necktie. Sure, he smells like a girl, but If it was the last toothbrush on earth, I don’t think he’d ever use my pink one.
I don’t ask for too much these days, but when it comes to toothbrushes, I still beg God, with every iota of serenity within me, for the wisdom to know the difference.
Seeing Things
This morning’s snow is heavy, the weight of it breaking and bending strong limbs in a resigned bow to Mother Earth. The flakes are wet with too much moisture as they fall upon a narrow branch, overshadowing its color and texture until it appears a mere fragment of its vibrant self.
I gasp for breath as my mother’s airway constricts again before my eyes, the fragile passage filling with the ravages of suffocation, the cold tubing inserted into her throat now a snow-curved twig. She gags in her coma, and flinches, until I finally have no choice but to beg for the blizzard of medical intervention to forever stop.
Days later, the next snowfall is unfurled upon the fallow soil of our souls. In the church, my siblings and I spread a snowy blanket upon the frigid ground of her closed casket, and I place a crucifix atop the whitened surface. Jesus in His agony seems to sink through snow, as we are all buried with Him, rebaptized with Him into His death.
More snows may come, I know. But they will melt faster now, and I will not hold my breath for nearly as long in the days ahead. Even now, as I gaze out my window on the wonders beyond, snow slides from a languishing limb.
With something like a sigh of relief, it recovers from its near collapse and reaches once more for the grey, leaden sky, with its unspoken promise of Spring.
Punch Card
Hospitals, if you hang around them long enough and for days and nights seemingly without end, often have hidden perks you might not recognize if you are only a casual visitor.
I am not a casual visitor. If I counted all the sleepless nights I’ve spent on lumpy, narrow cots in a patient room the size of a large closet, next to my fragile mother, well. Let’s just say math is not my strong suit.
It doesn’t take long in this setting, though—-maybe only three days—-before the nice guy who checks out your morning eggs in the cafeteria asks if you are entitled to the employee discount. You look down at your disheveled self, unshampooed for half a week, wrinkled, and in houseslippers, and wonder what he’s been smoking. But he’s serious, because you are now a regular. He’s seen you wandering the halls on his breaks, going in and out of various business offices on the premises, and you don’t even carry your purse anymore. You pull dollars out of your pocket like a worker who’s just left her post for a few seconds—-which is exactly the truth.
“Not an employee,” you say, “though the discount would come in handy. I am here a lot.” You try not to spill over into the morose, try not to give this sweet kid more information than he asked for. Your mother is not his problem. He only wants to know whether he should upcharge you or not—-that is all.
“Well, you should be an employee,” he says, with a sincerity and enthusiasm that shocks your ragged self. “You have a great personality!”
You do? This is news to you, like if you heard there was a massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan, only you found out way after the fact, after the heavy lifting equipment had been brought into the country and the debris removed and the bodies recovered and the nation rebuilt. A great personality? You file this piece of trivia away in your psyche—-or maybe in your soul—-for future reference. It might come in handy one day.
Later that afternoon, you make your trek down to the hospital Starbucks and put to use the tip your mother’s respiratory therapist just gave you: Friday is Double-Punch-Card Day. You were brilliant several months ago, when your mom was discharged without you filling up your Buy 10 Drinks, Get One Drink Free Card, to have secreted that valuable if flimsy scrap of cardstock away in your wallet.
In times past, when you were naive enough to believe you’d never endure another horrible hospitalization with your mom and she would miraculously stop being sick forever, you threw these cards away. In a spurt of eagerness for permanent relief from sickness, disability, brokenness, and yes, even death, you tossed your one chance to someday receive a venti sugar-free latte on the hospital’s dime. In fact, in the past ten years, you’ve thrown away six or seven of these cards, all filled with punches except for the very last one, since your mom always managed to be discharged from the hospital at exactly the most inopportune time.
Speaking purely from a caffeinated perspective, of course.
Finally, you get another chance. Looks like your mom will be in the hospital longer than usual, which is no short length of time. You make it your goal to fill up that punch card and receive your reward before she’s discharged. That seems fair, doesn’t it? You’ve earned that free drink many times over by now, and this time, you intend to work the system and get what’s coming to you.
On Double-Punch Day, you bring your game. For one thing, your mother’s condition is worsening, and coffee is needed. You declare a Rare Two Latte Day for yourself and invite your visiting husband to share in your largesse. Four punches on your card! You are so near now to winning the object of your desire, the piece de resistance, the One Free Drink that has managed to elude you these many long years of caring for your mom.
At last, the Final Punch is made on your card, and you exult. Tomorrow, on your afternoon break from listening to your mother’s airway slowly fill up until breath becomes impossible, you will treat yourself. Tomorrow, when you step out of her room for just a moment so that the nurses can clean up the messes her failing body continues to produce, you’ll coffee up and enjoy yourself.
Tomorrow, instead of holding her cold hand and waiting for final words that you’ll soon enough acknowledge have already been spoken, you’ll turn in your card and claim your prize.
Only you won’t, will you? You’ll end up, after everything is said and done, keeping that holey card as a tattered souvenir in your wallet, never cashing in those chips at all.
Your punch card is finally filled, and your mother is forever gone.
From A Lullaby To Goodbye….
I don’t remember how I first came to follow Patti McKenna on Twitter. Maybe her name attracted me because, well, I’m always up to meet a McKenna.
But I think it was more than that, more than just a chance meeting based on a shared last name. I soon found out she was in the beginning stages of a book project meant to offer hope and healing to anyone who’s lost a child. I approached her, not because I’ve had two miscarriages, but because I’ve lost a sibling—Patrick McKenna, who died when he was four and I was nearly two.
If you are a parent who’s endured the death of an infant or an older child, or even if you’ve lost a grandchild or a sibling or a niece or a nephew, you may realize how little support there is out there for your grief. It truly does seem as if this is the one tragedy everyone wants you to stop talking about, perhaps because it’s so unimaginably horrifying to the listener that, well, she doesn’t want to imagine it could happen to her.
The death of a child, of course, is not catching. But, in general, the one who’s loved and lost is expected to get over it, and certainly not to have lingering sorrow twenty years later—or even five. So the grieving are forced to swallow their sorrow, hoping not to also lose the few friends who’ve somehow managed not to fade into the distant past.
Patti McKenna, who lost a beloved son to SIDS many years ago, still has a spot in her heart that can only be filled by that baby. She knows what it’s like to go on with her otherwise wonderful life, while at the same time thinking of how old he’d be at his younger sister’s wedding, and imagining how much he’d look like his handsome father.
In honor of him, and in honor of all the young ones gone too soon, she’s created a beautiful volume called From A Lullaby To Goodbye. For the moment, it’s only available as a download through her website, but a print version will be on the market in the days ahead.
I’m privileged to have written two pieces about my brother Patrick—an essay and a poem—which Patti included in her book. As I read through the entire ebook, I was reduced to tears many times by the touching true stories of the contributors. These are writers with nothing to hide—their very souls are laid bare. Because of their vulnerability, I believe thousands of readers will be comforted and will come away knowing that their stories, too, deserve to be told.
If you know anyone who’s lost a child, please visit Patti’s website and considering giving this book as a gift.
If you yourself are living with such a loss, I pray From A Lullaby To Goodbye helps to heal your heart.
The More Things Change, The More They Don’t Have To Stay The Same
I realized at the beginning of 2011 how tired I am of petty thieves, sneaky time stealers that do little more than provide mindless entertainment (though I certainly appreciate mindless entertainment in moderation!) or fill an habitual slot in my web-surfing routine.
I mean, how pathetic is it that even though I DON’T CARE, I continued for years on end to follow a mind-numbing string of umpteen daily news sites, diet message boards, and conspiracy theory blogs?
How ridiculous is it that even though I lost interest many seasons ago, I persisted in giving two or three nights per week, at the sole discretion of Ryan Seacrest, to the developing drama called American Idol? I mean, if I want to witness someone performing badly, I can sing in front of a mirror, you know?
The problem, of course—-and I knew this when I opted to cut these and other activities cold turkey—-is that a vacuum, once emptied of the dust and dirt it’s collected, really wants to have a clean bag attached to it so you can start sucking up a whole bunch of new nonsense. My life, once delivered of time-sucking habits, practically begged me to refill it with more of the same.
For some weeks now, I’ve been at loose ends. I’ve successfully resisted the lure of my former activities, but replacing them with highly-valued, carefully chosen endeavors has proven more challenging. It’s a little scary, actually, to have more time than you believed possible and then to recognize that it’s completely likely you’d previously filled it with goofiness so as not to have to face your own reasons for being.
I am facing my reasons now. I am writing more than at any period during the last five years. I am refusing to blink in the presence of some giants (one of them my rear end!) that have nearly overcome me—-but amazingly, not quite yet. I am focusing more clearly on my husband, the love of my heart, and on the relationship we’ve been granted as the gift of a lifetime. And I’m opening my soul to my two beautiful new grandchildren, to whom I hope to devote many of the days ahead.
And I’m relearning myself, this woman who apparently still has plenty left to say, to be, and to do.
I’m in no hurry to fill these calm spaces, either. As long as what eventually fills them are the things that truly matter most.
Durable Medical Power Of Attorney Backwards R Us
I just participated in a quick elder care chat on Twitter. The question came up about who determines when it’s time for your medical-power-of-attorney to kick in on behalf of your elder. The moderator asked whether it’s typically a doctor, a judge, or an attorney who makes the decision.
I’ve gotta tell you, if I’d waited for an outsider to tell me what I already knew—-which was that Mom needed someone to make decisions for her NOW—-she would have been in a deadly situation with no one to speak for her on occasions too numerous to count.
Isn’t the whole point of the document to appoint someone who will make decisions regarding your care (often on an emergent basis), when you are unable to speak for yourself? How is that interest served if the timing of the “transfer of power” is left up to yet another party?
For a number of years, I went in-and-out of acting as Mom’s power-of-attorney. Typically, when she would overmedicate with Xanax and codeine and other cognition-altering drugs, she would end up falling and breaking bones. Or having a grand mal seizure. Or descending into anxiety attacks so serious that she had to be admitted to a geri-psych unit to get her drug situation better managed.
No one ever questioned my power-of-attorney during those lengthy episodes of injury and relative recovery. I would pull out the papers and be part of the decisions that affected Mom’s care. She was far too out of it at those junctures to make any choices on her own behalf. That went without saying.
But then, after they’d get her medications sorted out and her injuries addressed and send her back to assisted living, she might be more clear headed for a while—-perhaps, some months. That’s when she would resent me if I tried to micro-manage her health affairs, and I knew that she was able to make some good choices for herself again. So I would pull back.
Until the whole cycle started all over again. The drugs, the falls, the seizures, hospitalizations, nursing homes for long periods of therapy, etc.
Eventually, of course, if this cycle repeats too many times, the elderly person becomes incapable of reverting back to their former decision-making self. Mom is now entering her tenth year of long-term care. I wear power-of-attorney documents like a scapular under my blouse. I would not dream of leaving the house without them.
But it can be a slow-but-steady process, when the powers first come into play, if they ever do at all. It can be a give and take, a point of respect and responsibility between you and your parent which is rather like a dance in which you’re careful not to step on toes, but dedicated to fulfilling your role in the partnership.
Whatever you do, don’t wait for someone else to tell you it’s time to take up your role as leader in the dance. By then, it truly might be too late to act in your parent’s best interests, and that is the entire intention of the document in the first place.
Carry it with you. Use it well.
Blizzard’s Charm
We mothers have a primal urge:
Protect, nourish, and warm,
Those in our care, whether young or old.
And so we watch the leaden skies:
Wait, anticipate the storm,
Plot out our plans, safe from gathering cold.
We brave the winds though they be fierce:
Face brute threats of harm,
To serve the helpless sheep within our fold.
“Make cinnamon rolls!” a small one cries:
A waif-like, fragile form,
“And popcorn balls!” Her voice becomes more bold.
So mothers do what they have done:
Maintain maternal charm,
By making sure this tale’s forever told.
One Thing Really Does Lead To Another
So I got all the way through No-Spend January with only one short stop-off at HyVee, where they were practically giving away several loss leaders one day and I ended up spending $90. Other than that, nobody got any of my money during the entire month.
It’s the only New Year’s Resolution I made, and even it wasn’t intended to last a year. It was truly meant to be a New Month’s Resolution, which I find I’m much more likely to keep if only because I see the light at the end of the tunnel—-and some money at the end of my month.
Now I’ve decided to extend my no-spending trend into February, because honestly, why NOT? Is there anything I desperately need out there in the land of big screens and iPhones and appliances and purses and cars? Sometimes, I do have a genuine need, but this is not one of those times. So what’s with the chronic shopping in the absence of need?
If I’m bored or in it for the thrill of the hunt, well, I need to get over myself. I’ve decided that I do not want to get to the end of my life and be reduced to bragging to the Lord how I got my last pair of jeans on the 80% off clearance rack at Kohl’s and then had a 30% off coupon to make them even cheaper. It would be especially egregious, I imagine, if I also felt compelled to say to Him, “You could have waited to call me home until I got the chance to use my ‘$10 for Every $50 You Spend!’ coupons, since you and I both know it’s like getting paid to shop!”
The Lord has better plans for me, and I intend to pursue them. The first step is to ditch a bunch of stuff that currently occupies my thoughts, emotions, strength, and time. Unimportant stuff. Frivolous nonsense. Drama, dare I say it? There, I said it.
I’ve already decided that this year, I’m not watching American Idol. I have LOVED this show, and especially all the lessons I’ve learned from deluded contestants and applied to my own creative endeavors. But after watching every season thus far, I think I’ve gotten enough take-away to, well, take it away. I recently realized that I could not remember who last season’s winner was, and if that’s true, how invested was I in this show, anyway? Evidently, not invested enough to warrant spending umpteen hours per week watching it for yet another season.
I’ve also decided to give online news sites and talk radio a break. I only listen to the radio when I’m in the car, which isn’t that much, but you know what? I need to either find a music station that really makes me happy, or listen to French instruction CDs, or listen to books on tape. Or—-and here’s a concept I manage to avoid whenever possible—-drive in SILENCE.
Kind of scary for me, the whole “being alone with my own thoughts” thing. But, who knows? It could happen.
Finally (and remember, these are just February’s challenges I’m talking about…..), I am celebrating FINALLY getting my thyroid and hormone situation turned around by committing to a grain-free diet. I’ve been sugar-free since Feb, 2000 (Happy 11-Year Atkinsversary to Me!), and losing the sugar was the single best health decision I’ve ever managed to stick to.
But my thyroid problems over the past 1.5 years caused me an untenable weight gain, that did not stabilize until the day I switched from synthetic thyroid meds (which I’d taken for 17 years) to natural desiccated thyroid. For two months, my weight has stayed the same, and now it’s time to LOSE IT, baby!
I love Mark Sisson, who wrote The Primal Blueprint and who blogss at http://www.marksdailyapple.com. His philosophies are blessedly close to those of Dr. Atkins, with added emphasis on a fun-exercise way-of-life that I really need to add to my plan.
So this is what staying out of the stores in January leads to! Several more resolutions, all of which I feel are doable because of the success of one little January pledge.
If you’re looking down the barrel at some big changes in your life that you KNOW need to happen, think about making one small change first. It just might give you the boost you need to go forward with the more difficult challenge. At least, that’s what is true for me.
The huge plus to all of this is that I am finding time to write that I did not believe I had. I blamed The Moms and my year-long (truly debilitating) illness for robbing me, but there’s a good chance that the so-called stress relievers of shopping and Idol watching and news junkieism were the ultimate thieves.
Time to unload the excuses and make something of the rest of this, my one and only life.
The Legacy
Remembering nothing,
I am his keeper.
Feathery wisp, tinged with faintest auburn,
Yellowed cellophane,
Faded page,
Mildewed book.
One
Finger
Trembles
Touching his hair,
Long decades unmussed.
Tugging it once more,
Like the baby I was.
Did he laugh? Or cry?
Or pay me back?
He died.
One
Tear
Falls
Glistening, shimmering,
Onto my brother’s lock.
Onto this,
My inheritance.
Grouch
So I’ve been just a tad grouchy recently, and honestly, a lot of it has to do with cash flow.
We own a small business, a company of only two employees—-us. We’ve managed to fall into that age group where purchasing health insurance is a pricey venture. You would probably have a coronary if I told you how much our premiums and deductibles cost so I will spare you, since YOUR insurance may not be sufficient to cover such a medical disaster.
In addition, I just added up all the taxes I’ve written checks for in January alone—-and this includes one month’s federal payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, three months worth of payroll taxes to the state of MO, and our estimated personal taxes to the feds and MO on the non-corporate side of the equation. Our tax liability ALONE exceeded the income we brought in in January by 50%! And that’s BEFORE we purchase health, life, disability, homeowners, and car insurance. Before we pay our mortgage and tithe. Not that I’m complaining, you understand.
Oh, wait. I am.
In the past year or so, we’ve found collecting on the monies owed us to be a arduous task, whereas in most of the twelve years we’ve been running this business, we’ve only had occasional serious problems getting what was coming to us. Now, we’re made to feel like heels for requesting to be paid for jobs that were completed many months ago, and that just feels wrong.
What feels more wrong, though, is my lack of thankfulness for everything we have. And when I get like this, I have to go back to certain behaviors that have never failed to fill me with a humble gratitude, an attitude that I need to practice every single day, no matter what.
And so I iron. Ironing convinces me, quicker than any other discipline, that we have more nice clothes than any couple has a right to. There’s nothing “designer” in the whole mix, mind you, but we have outfits for any occasion that might come up, and who has a right to ask for more than that?
And then I cook. And when I cook, I use ingredients I find in my own pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. I challenge myself to make the most nutritious and tasty meals imaginable with items I already have in the house. I thank God, as I cook, for the abundance he’s given us, even if the abundance did not arrive this month. We then make it a point to tell each other how delicious our meals are, and how affordable, and how much less expensive than if we ate out.
And then I clean. I have inherited many beautiful antiques from beloved family members. There’s nothing like giving my great-grandmother’s pie safe a good once-over with Murphey’s Oil Soap and then maybe rubbing a nice coating of lemon oil into its grain to made me fully cognizant of the heritage I’ve been given. There’s nothing like changing the sheets on every bed, wiping down all the (old, but bravely hanging in there) appliances, and dusting cherished gifts from children now long grown to bring on an understanding of what it means to be truly blessed.
And then I take inventory of all the gift cards and Groupons I’ve got stacked up here. If I space out the spending of them, we could have one or two nice outings per month this year at restaurants, the dinner theater, and the movies, without spending a dime! We find ourselves becoming grateful because we have so much fun to look forward to.
And then I serve. Whether it’s my husband, The Moms, or a friend in need, putting someone else’s concerns ahead of my own is an automatic gratitude builder. I always forget that when I set out to serve, and it’s certainly not my motivation, but it nevertheless turns out to be true.
And then, after (or sometimes before) all that is said and done, I write. There is something so freeing about arriving at the end of the day and realizing you did the work God cut out for you. A huge burden is lifted when I get the words down on paper, when I move toward a goal of finishing a manuscript, and the lightness afterwards of a well-deserved sleep makes me thankful indeed.
I need to keep practicing gratitude. I need to ditch the grouchiness. And, for sanity’s sake, we might need to hire someone to do collections for us.
In the meantime, there are some really cute blouses in the ironing basket that I completely forgot I had. An entirely new wardrobe awaits, for which I am very thankful.
Frozen Falls
Caught in mid-air, frozen in place
Overflowing power reined in by frigid facts.
Unrelenting
Going nowhere, until the sun dictates.
Waterfall’s icicles, solidified strength
Stalagtites paralyzed by nature’s force.
Standing silent
Till tomorrow, when the torrent resumes.
