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
Silent Hour, Holy Hour
There are gifts wrapped inside the package of silence that can’t be given any other way.
If I fail to fall quiet, my eyes rarely seek out the window and the landscape beyond.I miss the solitary winter cardinal as it flings itself from limb to barren limb, like Turkish red embroidery stitched upon a field of rugged homespun fabric.
If I fail at noise reduction, my fingers neither anticipate nor appreciate the fine texture of a sheet of linen stationery, or a sheet of Egyptian cotton. I do not feel, when life is loud, the tenderness of my husband’s soul when his bearded cheek caresses my hand.
If I turn down the volume on everything but my own heartbeat, though, for even the briefest of moments, I hear thoughts swirling in my head. They are my thoughts, all mine, not those of another planted there during cacophonous hours. Sounding like a foreign language to me at first, a language I only vaguely recall, my quiet thoughts soon feel like the measure of who I am.
In utter silence, I hear droplets from icicles pinging the porch rail.
I feel breaths, drawn in shallows, making way for dreams drawn from depths.
Break In The Storms
Spindly limbs
Crackling under weighted, leaden snow
Like creaking bones,
Petrified and fracture-ready.
They splinter, one by one,
Dangling, useless arms
Swinging in the storm,
Till separated at the shoulder.
The birds, here by mistaken instinct,
Hear the trees’ screeching screams
But pay no mind,
Free from alarm.
They kiss each falling part,
Then escape each crashing branch.
Letting go to save their lives,
Taking flight to higher sky.
Falling By The Wayside
There are many things I’m letting go, so very many things.
I’ve learned, in slow motion over the span of decades, with arms outreached and exhausted from perpetual effort, that I cannot keep a single sparrow from falling out of the sky. I can cradle the lifeless fallen in my cupped palm, let a stray tear fall on its head in the baptism of the dead, and bury it in a shoe box, if I’m so inclined. But I can’t prevent its fall or soften the inevitable crash, either.
I am not God.
I’ve learned, during frantic episodes of manic good works, that I cannot direct the course of another’s life. I am not called to be so kind that I inadvertently protect a human soul from the dealings of a loving Savior. I am not appointed to prevent a friend from coming into contact with the One who may or may not seem to be, at that moment, as beneficient as I imagine myself to be.
I am not God.
I’ve learned, through years of multi-tasking yet somehow missing the miracles in the moment, that each of us is only given one brief life on this earth. It flees as if on fire, faster every day it races toward the finish line as it sees the prize ahead, and I am powerless to stop it. I cannot slow the speed with which my earthly life sprints, but I can slow my heart and mind to match the unrushed rhythms of eternity. I can focus on the minutest detail of the now, and stop the clock, second by second.
Even though I am not God.
I am letting so many things fall by the wayside. I am casting aside the weights that so easily encumber me, the burdens I am not meant to carry, the concerns that have not been fashioned by my Creator for me to bear.
I, too, am falling by the wayside, like a seed sown in uncertain and apparently unyielding ground. I am trusting more than ever in the One who raises us and brings forth fruit from those who answer His frightening bidding to fall to the earth and die.
Because, when all is said and done, I am not now, nor will I ever be God.
The Biggest Loser
I read an article online not long ago that I can’t get out of my mind. It was written by a woman who’s taken her very elderly mother into her home, to live with her and her family. I don’t know what the younger woman does for a living, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she’s a professional writer.
The commenters to her piece almost universally praised her for her beautiful words (they were certainly evocative, in that memoirish, creative non-fiction way so many readers and writers admire, including me). Many also encouraged the author’s nobility in caring so deeply and well for her mother that she would spare her mother the indignity of being institutionalized (for significant dementia) and instead provide care and oversight in a family setting.
So why did I cringe when I read the story, and why am I wincing still?
Because it was so clear reading the author’s account that the old lady’s most basic needs were not being met, and that the daughter resented the mother’s intrusion into what would have otherwise been a rather streamlined (and yes, dare I say it, fun!) life.
The author mentioned her mother wearing the same outfit—-day and night—-for six days, and refusing (or was it merely forgetting?) to bathe. She wrote that her mother got frustrated with their conversation early one morning, grabbed the car keys, and drove down the driveway. Do responsible caregivers really allow their elders to drive cars, no matter how physically capable they might be to do so, when their cognitive abilities have declined so markedly that they can’t remember what happened thirty seconds ago?
The writer said her mother stopped at the edge of the driveway and drove no farther, because she knew she wouldn’t know how to get back home. This is a poor understanding of advanced dementia, in my experience. How can the daughter predict with certainty which things her mother will “know” and “not know” in a specific situation? Or from one day—-or one moment—-to the next? Dementia is progressive, not static. Its victims are unpredictable, even if immobile—-and this writer’s mother is anything but immobile.
My own mother-in-law took automotive chances regularly for months, if not years, before we her children were aware of her driving difficulties. She was only determined to make short runs to the grocery store, just a few blocks from her house, but finally admitted that every time she tried it she had to stop and ask directions back to her own address. The gas station attendant knew her well. She’d pull in, display her driver’s license to him, and he’d tell her exactly which corners to turn at if she ever hoped to see her home again.
“Don’t tell the others….” she begged my sister-in-law, who immediately, of course, told the others. And all of us put our heads together and figured out the first in a series of next steps, which was obviously to remove the car keys from her possession. For her sake, though, we had to do it in a way that appealed to her love for all “the puppies,” who might be in danger if she were to be in an accident. But appeal we did, and act we did.
Besides the fact that her mom is not getting bathed or wearing clean clothing and is a clear flight risk, the author also referred to her mom’s endless energy and desire to be moving from one activity straight into the next. For the daughter, who just wanted to sip some coffee in peace (I get that, I really do!), her mom’s enthusiasm was frustrating and she didn’t hesitate to let her mom know how she felt.
Yeah, that’s honest and gripping storytelling. So raw, it might even be award-winning, I don’t know. But I keep thinking about the old lady’s social needs, going almost completely unmet, and how Memory Care units are designed for gals just like her.
In the right setting, the demented woman would not be constantly barraged with questions she couldn’t answer. Or questions worded in such a way that she felt like she was being “tested” and always failing. In the right setting, she would have family relationships plus some peers with whom to chatter, do crafts, share meals, and go on outings.
I am not at all saying that the adult child’s home is never the right setting for the demented parent. In many cases, it’s the perfect setting. But I wish every child who’s faced with a parent’s decline would consider the elder’s best interests to be foremost in the decision making process. For those whose parent has no problem getting in and out of a car, some days spent in a terrific elder daycare setting might be a wonderful social solution, as well as a respite for both parent and child.
If the adult child consistently loses patience with a parent who is physically amazing but mentally a no-show, I hate to think how quickly nobility would fly out the window if the old lady, I don’t know, broke her hip or something.
With everything our elderly stand to lose as their days draw to an ultimate close, I see no earthly reason why anyone’s mom should end up The Biggest Loser of all.
Maybe It’s Not Magic, After All
I am currently sitting on more potentially publishable material than any one person has a right to.
I’ve been writing humor pieces for 15 years, and while many have been published in newspapers and magazines, tons more have only ever seen the light of blog. I’ve got solid ideas for a dozen novels, have a good start on four or so, but have completed only one. In addition, I’ve got some terrific plans for creative non-fiction books, at least ten titles that I can remember off the top of my head.
So what’s my problem, you ask? Why don’t I get my rear in gear and get my act together?
That’s easy. My problem is that I’ve believed in magic.
It hasn’t always been like this. There was a time when a friend dared me to snail mail (our only option back then, before email had even entered our imaginations) articles out to publishers and issued an ultimatum that we wouldn’t meet up socially again until I’d overcome this hurdle. In one month’s time, I sent out three finished pieces (unsolicited) and all three were purchased and subsequently published.
I apparently respond well to ultimatums. My friend was shocked that I’d had such a simple time placing my articles, and happy she’d had a hand in prompting me to risk the rejections and reap the reward.
I’ve experienced my share of rejections since then, don’t get me wrong. But not so many that I didn’t also have regular sales, the number of which was sufficient to keep me motivated and confident that I was on the right path.
Somewhere along the line, though, things took a bad turn in my psyche. It didn’t help that my entire life got so waylaid with eldercare issues, for such an extended period of time (ten years running now), that I became physically ill myself. I put my entire life on hold, not because I wanted to, but because I did not have the spiritual, emotional, or physical reserves to do The Moms’ lives and mine, too.
Duty called. I answered. And I started believing the lie that only people who had Magically Delicious Lives got published—-and clearly my life was and is anything but a box of Lucky Charms.
But now I wonder how I could have been so deceived. I know amazing writers who’ve not abandoned ship even when they’ve contracted cancer and had to go through chemo. I know writers whose adult or teenaged children give them constant fits, but they continue to lead productive creative lives, and others with multiple school-aged kids who manage all their many activities and still meet deadlines.
And yes, I now know writers who deal with caring for their elders without completely sacrificing their own ambitions and callings. It can be done. It’s done every day, by countless dedicated artists who are served quite well by their disbelief in magic.
These inspiring authors are making it happen in spite of their circumstances, in spite of the cards they’ve been dealt, in spite of the incredible odds against them.
So today, I’m committing to ditching my misplaced belief in magic. I’m going to do what it takes to put one word after another, to follow one sentence with the next, and to put together viable book proposals based on the wonderful ideas I’ve been sitting on for far too long.
But even though I’m deliberately demystifying the process of writing and getting my materials out there for consideration, there’s one kind of magic I’ll never give up—the kind that happens when a reader connects with the written word and is changed by it, touched by it, made more alive than she ever was before the encounter.
That’s the only magic I still hope to make happen.
That Pesky Good Samaritan
I’ve been a follower of Jesus for a good long time, but I’ve gotta be honest with you: There are some Bible stories that bug the heck out of me.
I’m fairly certain I discern the makings of an ongoing series of blog posts on this subject, so I won’t spill all the bugged beans in one entry. But for today, let me just say that I’ve never thought The Good Samaritan was overly compassionate. In fact, I’ve always thought he fell down on the job with a major thud.
So why did Jesus give him—-ostensibly, a fictional character in a parable the Savior was free to spin any way He liked—-such Scot-free kudos? Sure, compared to the religious creeps who passed by the beat-up guy on the other side of the road and wouldn’t even lower themselves to pretend they noticed his distress, The Good Samaritan looks squeaky clean and uber-caring.
But, honestly. Would YOU give a Best Samaritan Character award to a guy who staunches a bit of blood, drags a punk to a Super 8, spends one night loosely monitoring his vital signs, and then bribes the manager to cover the property damage?
I’ve never thought The Good Samaritan was too late, but I’ve always thought he did too little. Far too little.
For one thing, it seems to me the businessman (who had an appointment in Jericho that supposedly couldn’t wait long…..) did nothing to address the social needs of the guy who’d been mugged and beaten. Jesus’ story doesn’t indicate that the Samaritan tried to get the Division of Family Services involved, or contacted the police to file a missing persons report, in case the guy’s wife or parents were looking for him.
Furthermore, the story doesn’t indicate that the Samaritan was much of a conversationalist. Did he even attempt to soothe the victim’s fears, offer companionship on a level deeper than wiping his brow until his fever broke, or agree to play Mafia Wars or Farmville with him on facebook after the dust settled? There’s no reason to believe he did one darned thing more than meet the man’s basic survival needs and then consign him to someone who may or may not have been sufficiently motivated to provide ongoing assistance.
And then, when The Good Samaritan checked out of the Super 8 the next morning, he wrote a big, fat check to the manager. A check large enough to cover everything, including ongoing care for the injured man. Along with a promise to return and cough up more money, if the situation demanded it.
THIS is where the story gets dicey for me. How did he know he could trust the manager to do the caregiving task as well as he’d been doing it, which was at least at a level of basic competence if he got the guy through the night? Was it purely a case of “money talks” and just in case you’re thinking about slacking off, there’s plenty more where that came from? And also: How did the Samaritan determine that his business dealings in Jericho were still important, still an uppermost priority, in light of the fact that God had put this “person of need” directly in his path?
The truth is that The Good Samaritan drew a boundary on that blood-spattered road, and so did the priest and the Levite who walked past on the other side and averted their eyes and hearts. Unlike them, though, he was compelled to alleviate the type of human suffering that cannot be overcome by the victim’s efforts alone. He was compelled to bear the burdens of another until those burdens became less acute, but not to ignore his own callings and concerns completely.
I’ve always imagined the mugging victim dying at the incompetent hands of the Super 8 manager, but Jesus gives us no reason to think the victim had anything but a positive outcome after the Samaritan left his side. Besides, the story isn’t really about the Needy Guy,is it? It’s about us, and whether we step up to the appropriate boundaries in our lives. And when we do, making sure we do it in a way that meets the need of the desperate soul without misplacing our own callings and responsibilities.
Suffice it to say, I’m taking another look at The Good Samaritan and what made him tick.
And realizing that Jesus saw something in him that He’d very much like to see in me.
She Had A Book Inside Of Her
My beloved grandmother died when I was 19, and now I’ve just turned 57. It’s been 38 years (longer, really…) since I heard her say those words so many utter at some point in their lives. “I’ve got a book inside of me.”
I was young and naive and honestly didn’t know what she meant. But the only time I ever saw her with a pencil in her hand was when she was scribbling out a recipe for homemade cream puffs, or making a grocery list, or perhaps jotting a note of thanks or condolence to a dear friend.
Well, then there were the letters she wrote me after I moved out of my parents’ house and into my first apartment. It was right around the time of the Watergate scandal and I remember being so impressed that she—-a staunch Republican—-could bring herself to admit that Nixon had flubbed up big-time.
I treasure those letters for what were then and what they have become with the passage of time, the envelopes containing as they do not only her inked thoughts, but also ambered newspaper clippings from the Kansas City Star—-historical documents one and all.
I find these letters among my personal ephemera from time to time and inhale her scent—-White Shoulders—-and miss her with a sudden pang of grief that defies logic but is true nonetheless.
I miss her wisdom, her teaching of homemaking skills, her cooking (best pan-fried chicken in the known universe), her beautiful needlework, and the lunches of Ritz crackers, peanut butter, and a large glass bottle of Coca-Cola we shared so often.
Most of all, though, I miss the book she didn’t write. I never even knew how to ask her what it would have been about, had she gathered the momentum to begin it. My father was a frustrated poet (and a frustrated banker because of it….) and I didn’t know how to broach a subject with her that might have caused her (as it did him) angst I couldn’t soften.
“I’ve got a book inside of me.”
I inherited so many belongings of my grandmother’s, but the items that have disturbed me most over these 38 years since her death are her unfinished projects. Since she taught me to sew and knit and crochet and embroider and quilt, it was assumed by my mother and non-crafty sisters that I would complete what Grandma started—-that I somehow owed it to the family to do so.
And now, all this time later, her projects are still unfinished, languishing in my attic, waiting for….me?
I don’t think I’ll be finishing the work she began, not anymore. I’ve finally realized that there was a part of Grandma that started all those projects to avoid the book inside of her, to keep the words locked up even while her fingers worked furiously on other beautiful projects, on substitutes for her thoughts and feelings and creativity with words.
The best I can do is use her snippets of filet crochet and random quilt blocks to decorate pillows or fashion simple doll clothes in her honor, and offer them to family members as a memorial to a treasured ancestor.
And then use the rest of my life to honor her in the only other way I know how, by pushing aside the distractions, no matter how beautiful they might be in their own rite, or how cherished they might possibly be by my own grandchildren someday.
Because, after all, I am her granddaughter. And I’ve got a book inside of me.
Between A Rock and A DNR
“Make sure you’ve got DNRs in place,” a friend of mine advised recently. “That way you won’t have to make horrible decisions when the time comes.”
This friend couldn’t possibly know all the particulars of our situations with The Moms, but suffice it to say, DNRs Backwards ‘R’ Us. With the emphasis, more often than I’d like to admit, on the Backwards.
Both of The Moms have black-and-white, lethal-looking signs clearly posted in their nursing home rooms, apprising staff and paramedics that they are NOT to be brought back to life should they completely and fully expire. That’s the essence of the Do Not Resuscitate order, a step both my mother and my mother-in-law chose to take for themselves back when they were of sound mind and which we, their representatives, verify and re-verify at every hospital, ad infinitum. (A hospital will not honor a nursing home’s DNR, and vice versa. And, living in a big city, we are often diverted to different hospitals than the ones that have our mother’s files, such as in the case of an emergency room already being filled to capacity.)
A DNR form, no matter how explicit and final its wording (deceptively leading you to hope you’ll never have to think about THAT again), can end up being the wrenching decision that keeps on taking.
I’ve even had the onerous experience of using my body as a shield against heroic efforts, propping my weary self up in my mother’s hospital room doorway all night long, when the hospital where she was admitted was unfamiliar with her wishes and could not get a doctor to sign off on her DNR until the next morning.
“If she ‘codes,’” the nurse informed me, “we have no choice but to bring a crash cart in and attempt to revive her.”
“But most of her ribs have already been broken,” I protested. My mother has Osteoporosis of Unusual Severity. “She does not want to be revived and I can’t allow you to crush her fragile bones doing chest compressions.”
“Then I suggest,” she said, “that you physically block the doorway. Because if anything happens before you produce the paperwork or the doctor signs a new form, we WILL use the crash cart.”
I have learned the hard way, over the course of ten years, to never leave home without copies of DNR papers. Sure as anything, if I head to Walmart for a gallon of milk, I’ll get the call to meet the ambulance—-carrying one or the other of The Moms—-at the hospital. And the FIRST thing I’ll be asked as durable medical power-of-attorney is to produce documents related to end-of-life wishes.
It was bad enough (and, I guess, a little creepy, but there you go….) when I just kept grab-and-go copies in plastic sheet protectors on the fridge, next to random pictures of the kids, the dog, and the grocery list. Now I keep DNR papers in the glove boxes of both cars, along with proof of insurance and evidence of timely oil changes, because a daughter just cannot be too vigilant.
But I’ve got to say, there’s a LOT of wiggle room between a rock and a DNR, and that’s the spot I’ve found myself in too many times now to count.
If you’ve never found yourself in the position of saving an elder’s life, trust me. It could happen to you, and before you know it, producing DNR papers will look like child’s play. In fact, it’s downright EASY, by comparison, to insist that those in the medical profession honor your loved one’s written wishes. What’s NOT easy are all the scores of decisions you may end up making between now and when that DNR gets put into play.
Say, for instance, your parent lived in an assisted living facility or nursing home, and in the process of being transferred from the bed to the wheelchair, she gets dropped. You could pretend that you don’t fear a head injury when your mom tells you the story, including the part where she felt the back of her head hit the hard floor. You could act as if you aren’t cognizant of the fact that the employees at the facility don’t seem to be noticing her developing symptoms in the 24 hours after the incident.
There’s a reasonable chance your elder could die after such an event, unless you intervene and insist she be evaluated at the hospital and treated for any injuries incurred. So what do you, a person with a reasonably refined conscience, do? If you act to “save” her and succeed, you may be inadvertently prolonging her suffering, should her head injuries be the type to result in long-term mental disability.
Most nursing homes, once your parent becomes a resident there, will present you with the option of signing papers indicating your decision to not “send her out” when she becomes more critically ill. In other words, even in the absence of your parent needing or wanting hospice care, you will have pre-determined that should she become so acutely sick that you would have formerly taken her to the ER, you will now simply let her die (or live, if God so chooses….) in place.
I struggle with this. How do I, a mere mortal, know in advance whether a particular onset of illness is something easily curable with judicious and prompt medical treatment, or whether seeking that treatment will cause more ultimate harm than good to my loved one? How do I decide ahead of time that Mom will no longer be going to the hospital, ever, under any circumstances?
Two years ago, when Mom’s blood calcium rose to precipitous levels and caused her to behave as if insane, I overruled the nurse on duty at the nursing home (who had chosen to ignore my mother’s worsening condition for 12 hours….) and called for an ambulance. It did not take long for the ER docs to find the problem and begin the appropriate treatment, which completely reversed the condition. However, during the days Mom spent gaining strength as an inpatient, the hospitalist assigned to her delivered a speech to Mom (in the presence of her children) which confused Mom all to heck.
“Mrs. McKenna,” said the doctor, “you really need to decide that you will stop coming to the hospital. You are receiving good care at the nursing home. Just stay there.”
I said, “Excuse me, doctor, but my mother would have died of neglect at the nursing home, of a condition that was reversed without any complications once we arrived at the hospital. Is that really what you’re suggesting is in her best interest?”
The doctor said, “Well, perhaps in this case, she should have been brought to the hospital. But not in the future.”
The moral of my story is this: If your loved one wants to sign a DNR, you will have one piece of a very complicated puzzle in place. But understand the DNR’s a piece that may be free-floating on the card table for many years, while you try to fit 999 other pieces around it, one-by-one.
You may end up saving your parent’s life more than once, and perhaps even once more than she would have liked.
Overboard
I’ve realized, over the course of decades of New Year’s resolution making-and-breaking, that I’m actually more of a Lent kind of girl.
In order to get something—-ANYthing—-accomplished, it seems I have to put myself through the process of elimination. I have to give up stuff, cut back, sacrifice, weed, thin out, simplify.
For instance, and this may not sound like much of a resolution to you, but I am firmly resolved to SKIP the entire season of American Idol this year. It sounds more like something a person might give up for Lent, but then catch in re-runs later. But there’s a method to my madness, at least I think there is.
It’s the same method I try to use when I say, “I saved 75% on those jeans I found in the clearance aisle.” In fact, on December 31, before my January moratorium on shopping and spending went into effect, I found a $48 retail price pair of jeans at Kohl’s on clearance for $11. Then I used my 20% discount to get them down to $8.80. Yay for me, eh?
Except that I can’t truly say I saved any money unless I put money into my savings account. So, in my mind, this excellent shopping outcome is not complete until I send the $40 I “saved” to a very safe place—-far, far away from my capacity to grab it and spend it away. And it’s even better if that account is earmarked for a specific goal, so that I can tie my saving to a future achievement.
I’m trying to apply that same logic to the New Year. I am giving up some time-squandering stuff not because I’m the type of chick who likes less stuff, haha. But because I have unmet life goals that are worth pursuing and in need of LOTS of undivided attention if I’m ever going to accomplish them.
Would less time spent online help move me toward my goal of becoming a published book author? Only if I don’t take that saved time and immediately spend it shopping at Penney’s Outlet for all those end-of-season bargains!
My saved time, captured from a variety of sources including but not limited to ditching American Idol, must be put into an account I can draw from for a very specific purpose.
In my case, that purpose is to get back to some real, potentially publishable writing.
So yeah, I’m throwing some stuff overboard, but with the goal of saving from ruin that which is more important to my life.
My load is feeling lighter already.
A VERY Frugal January!
So, here it is, Christmas Eve, and I’m already making New Month’s Resolutions.
I guess I’m early this year because our kids and grandkids have come and gone, at least as far as our big Christmas celebration goes. I’ve got the laundry done, clean sheets on all the beds, the house tidied up, the end-of-year finances tallied, and—-this is a big one for me—-the leftovers in the fridge dealt with.
Typically, after eating ourselves into a funk for a few days running, I can’t bring myself to even open the refrigerator for upwards of two weeks after the holidays. And by then, you can imagine what it looks like in there. I may not have asked for or received fur in a classy box under the tree, but sure enough, it grows in the fridge for free. And I always feel terrible to think I didn’t manage those leftovers better and ended up wasting perfectly yummy food.
Today, I attacked the leftover beast head-on and I think I conquered it. I packaged up and froze turkey (in small containers), dressing, pistachio salad, broccoli-rice casserole, cheesecake, and appetizers. And then I took my resolve not to waste food a step further. I decided not to purchase any groceries for the month of January, except for milk, eggs, and bread, and to focus exclusively on eating what’s already in this house. There are only two of us here, for heaven’s sake. The huge tin of popcorn we received as a gift is alone enough to sustain us, if need be!
In addition to putting the kabosh on grocery purchases, why not take it another step? I have a few Groupons that must be used before their expirations dates, but other than spending those, we have NO need to enter a restaurant or make any online purchases at all. Even the wonderful gift cards we received this Christmas can wait to be spent—-I bet we’ll enjoy them a lot more in February after taking a consumption break during January.
Honestly, about the only thing I can imagine wanting during the first month of 2011 is a few more prints of my two new grandbabies, Silas and Juniper, to add to my Grandma’s Brag Books. For a few cents each, I may splurge on those.
All those after-Christmas clearance sales will have to get along without me this year, and I’m sure they’ll manage just fine. Enough really is as good as a feast!
Left Behind
I know the concern of being Left Behind when Jesus comes back should cause any thinking woman considerable angst, but today it’s not the Left Behind books that have me worried.
It’s the Left Behind magazines.
Here in Kansas City, Left Behind magazines have sprung up in every borough, it seems, and right smack in the middle of the longest and deepest recession of my entire life. If you frequent doctor’s offices, hospitals, or waiting rooms of any type, you’ve been the unwitting reader of a Left Behind magazine, though perhaps you haven’t been affected by them quite as profoundly as I have, since I spend WAY more time than the average chick in waiting rooms.
Left Behind magazines are literally left behind, stacks and stacks of them, in racks at your local Barnes & Noble, too, and at grocery stores, hair salons, and even restaurants. They are free for the taking, high-gloss and glitzy, heavy-papered and full-color. And if their advertisers know their readers very well at all, I’m toast.
In Kansas City at least, a huge number of female readers apparently have nothing on their minds besides hair extensions, hot rock massages at day spas, minimally invasive plastic surgery, mani-pedis, and the application of permanent make-up. Not to mention the standard butt lifts, eyelid lifts, boob enhancements, dental implants, and botox injections.
Yesterday, I scoured one magazine from front to back for even a single ad for a fancy Kohler faucet or an Oreck XL vacuum cleaner or a Vita-Mix blender, once big draws for prosperous women with bucks to burn. Never mind the practicality of high-end fixtures and appliances, what about a good old-fashioned ad for a Kansas City institution, the Alaskan Fur Company?
Time was when, especially at Christmas, women all over this fair city wished to be one of the chosen few to open a huge coat box on The Big Day and find a gorgeous fur waiting for them. But luxuries these days aren’t so much about what you put on your body as they are about what you do to your body.
It’s clear to me finally that I’ve been utterly Left Behind, that’s there’s no way I’ll ever care enough to be poked and prodded and pummeled day after day, only to maintain, after all is said and done and paid for, an artificial look and feel so unlike me that I might get accidentally Left Behind by dear Jesus Himself.
No, thanks. For me, it’s the Kansas City women’s magazines that are getting Left Behind. And not having to haul them home and then to the recycling bin saves me the need for that pricey massage.
Some Things, You Know
Two days before Christmas, when Mom fell and broke a rib and three bones in her foot, I knew.
I knew when the ambulance arrived at her assisted living apartment and I gathered her purse and medical papers and the few items she’d need at the hospital, that when the gurney wheeled her out of those small rooms, her world would become even smaller. I almost said, “Mom, take a good look around. You’ve lived here eight years. This has been your home, and these people your friends, but you’ll never see this place again.”
But I didn’t. Some things you must know and not say. A prophet is most likely to go without honor if she opens her mouth.
“We’ll be back,” I lie to the nurse on duty, smiling reassuringly as we approached Mom’s dear friend, Annie, a 100-year-old darling who stood crying in the hallway, as was her steadfast habit when the paramedics came for Mom.
The paramedics have never once come for Annie in all these years. Annie will be one of those ladies who’s put to bed one splendid evening, sleepy and content to slumber to the lullaby of the cicadas, and who wakes up in the morning to find herself, as they say, dead. Annie plays bridge three times a week with other hallwardly mobile ladies, down in the so-called activity room, where she also takes exercises every morning promptly at nine and prays the rosary in a circle of the devoted twice weekly at three.
For a regretted second, I am jealous of Annie’s daughter, a woman who lives in Phoenix and comes to see her mom four times a year, so they can go shopping for a few new stylish outfits and enough boxes of Cheese Nips to hold Annie’s junk-food cravings at bay till the season changes again.
“Will she be okay?” Annie whispers between tiny sobs.
“She’ll be fine, Annie,” I say. “I will call you as soon as we know what the damages are. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll take care of her.”
She strokes Mom’s face as the paramedics strap her onto the gurney and cover her with several warm blankets. An irrational fear comes over me that they will shoo Annie’s hand away and draw the blankets all the way up, over Mom’s head, finishing her off.
They stop just short of her chin and I exhale, and I realize we’ve been meeting like this too often. I know the paramedics by their first names, at least twenty different ones around town, and I’ve started to see them in my dreams.
Only then, they are pallbearers and the gurney is a casket and the ambulance is a hearse.
“I’ll see you soon,” Mom says to Annie, but she won’t, not this side of heaven, and I know this. Do Mom and Annie know it, too?
By this time next week, I think, I’ll be packing up this apartment with my baby sister and trying to avoid sweet weeping Annie’s questions and letting myself be jealous of Annie’s daughter in Phoenix for more than just a few seconds.
We celebrated Christmas in the hospital, Mom and me. The storms have never been as fierce as they were this winter, and I knew I’d end up snowed in once I arrived back at the hospital the next day. After admitting Mom and staying with her that first night until one a.m. or so, I drove home, slept a few hours, and then had Christmas with my own little family on Christmas Eve morning.
The clouds unleashed snow like a roaring avalanche without a mountain all day long. By noon, we broke up our party and my married kids got on the slow road to their in-laws. My youngest son made his way to work and I left my husband alone to greet the arrival of the Christ child snowed-in on our bridal-quilt-covered acreage.
“Merry Christmas, my love,” I said, as I kissed him good-bye. And he smiled and held me a nice long time, but not as long as I wished. I knew I wouldn’t get home that day, or night, and possibly not the next day, either. I’d be sleeping on a narrow cot, not much wider than a manger, awaiting the birth of hope and joy and peace on earth.
What I didn’t know was that before I pulled the cord on the dim hospital room light that evening and kissed my mother’s cheek, I’d pull the socks off my own feet and hang them by the TV with care. What I didn’t know was that I’d find two Russell Stover’s sugar-free granola bars in my overnight bag and place them—-my only sustenance for this stay of undeterminable length—-one each in those two sad stockings.
What I didn’t know was that Mom would smile once before drifting off to a drug-induced sleep in which she screamed from pain with every breath all night long.
At midnight, another voice arose in song, as if a female Magi patient from the room next door had seen the call light over the door to the East and could contain her praises no more.
“Someone’s singing,” Mom muttered between screams.
“Yes,” I said. “The lady in the next room. She’s singing every verse of Silent Night…”
And so she did. The woman never hit a single accurate note, but it didn’t matter. A child was born, one who was bound to change everything, even for those who know too much and hide behind lies to soften life’s blows.
Mom fell back to sleep and the screams resumed, one with each labored breath, the rhythmic ticking of a bruised and battered body. As I lay in abject darkness, my lips mouthed the words of the song next door along with the patient, wanting the singer’s hymn to prevail, to drown out Mom’s suffering, to usher in a new and living covenant.
And then the wailing began.
“She crying now,” Mom said in her stupor, and then screamed herself to sleep again.
No more calmness from the next room. No more ‘round yon virgin. No more silent night. The woman screeched and moaned her mental anguish throughout the wee hours of that Christmas morn. “Why, God, whyyyyyyyyy? Jesus, I don’t understand. Why, O my God, why?”
After an hour or so, I wandered down to the nurse’s station. “Can you hear the patient in the corner room? She’s in so much distress…”
The nurse’s eyes met mine, and we understood each other even before she spoke. “She’s lost something, and none of us can find it for her.”
I knew then the story of this Christmas, perhaps the story of every Christmas that has ever been from the beginning and will be until the end. We’ve all lost something, lost everything, really. And as hard as we might try, as loudly as we might sing, as often as we might cry out in pain, we can’t find it for ourselves or for each other, either. Not on our own. Not without Him.
I knew something else, too. The lady’s lamentations and Mom’s unconscious screams and my own fears for Mom’s future and mine had somehow become one, in a communion of saints and Savior unlike any of which I’d ever partaken.
There was no deep and dreamless sleep that night, but Jesus came to dwell with us nonetheless. Instead of arriving to the bleating of lambs and the lowing of cattle, He entered our private world of unanswered heart cries and breathtaking pain and worn socks masquerading as Christmas cheer.
Near first light, Mom awakened. The lady’s wails had softened until they’d finally subsided and Mom seemed to remember nothing that had happened while I lay with eyes wide open that entire night.
“Merry Christmas, Mom,” I said.
“Today?” she said, incredulous. “This is Christmas?”
I pointed to the TV, where my stretched-out socks were bulging with small treats. “Shall we see what’s in our stockings?”
She smiled and nodded. We ate our granola bars like grateful children.
Then she turned to me and asked, “Did you hear a lady singing Christmas carols and crying in the night? Or did I dream it?”
“It was real, Mom,” I said, bending down to smooth her hair and kiss her lips. “And in a way, I guess, kind of a dream, too.”
Some things, after all, we just know.
Ticking The Boxes
“Does your mother like to cook?” the Activities Director at the nursing home asks me. I’m in the hall outside Mom’s room, where she’s occupied at the moment on the bedpan. “The residents are making homemade soup today!”
If Debbie knew my mom, she would not have ended that last sentence so enthusiastically. Sure, Mom did make a mean Irish stew in her day, but this isn’t…her day.
In fact, since Mom fell and broke a rib and three bones in her foot on December 23, her whole life has been a messy soup of ambulances, hospitals, casts, near-death misses, and two different nursing homes—a soup not of her own making, but which she’s been forced to swallow anyway.
To add insult to literal injury, Mom’s had to permanently move from her assisted living apartment, where she’d lived for nearly eight years, because they just couldn’t care for her properly anymore.
“Cook?” I say, thinking of the memoir The Glass Castle, in which the author as a three-year-old stands in front of the stove and boils the living daylights out of a hotdog. “She likes to eat, but as for actual cooking, I think she’s more of a spectator now.”
I say this with a hint of humor but cautiously, because we’re new here, and Mom will likely be living out the rest of her days in this facility. Everyone has been so kind to her, and I don’t want to tip any scales against her while she’s still in the mode of (hopefully) making a good first impression. I hear myself say the word spectator with a snap where the c meets the t, making spectating sound somehow more active than it is.
The truth is that I had to remove the manicure scissors from Mom’s room at the previous facility on New Year’s Eve. Mom was using the kind of language that forces thoughtful caregivers to expunge from her possession all implements sharper than a beach ball.
Should she be trusted with a chef’s knife?
Debbie smiles wanly and ticks off a box on her clipboard. “How about crocheting? Knitting? Sewing?” Her pencil is poised, eager. But I can only think of hooks and needles, pointy and painful things.
“Her vision’s not what it used to be, I’m afraid. Diabetic retinopathy. She made a lot of cross-stitched samplers in her time, though.”
Again, ticking a box.
“Cards, then? Board games? Puzzles?”
“That would be no, no, and no.”
I’m edging toward blunt and brutal honesty, as I always do eventually. I feel guilty, revealing the extent of Mom’s decline and lack of zest for life as I am. I scramble through memories, trying to grasp an elusive thread of any hobby substantial enough to weave through Mom’s current condition and pull her together for this personality profile. For the sake of, if nothing else, the Activity Director’s clipboard. I know how much Debbie wants to tick a Yes, or at the very least a Maybe.
I suddenly feel responsible for her job security.
“She may present a bit of a challenge,” I say, “but I’m sure you’re up to the task!” Oh, dear. Now I, too, have shown enthusiasm where none is warranted. “Maybe books on tape? She used to love to read Danielle Steel…”
I’ve finally given Debbie something she can put in the Yes column. I hear myself exhale. Mom has passed some kind of test. Evidently, she’s not dead yet.
“Books on tape, it is,” she says. Mom has no concept of how to use a cassette player, but I don’t need to go there now. It’s enough that Debbie will have definitely earned her next paycheck, when it comes.
She heads down the hall to get to know another new resident, and I take the opportunity, while Mom’s still busy, to run across the street to Starbucks. When I return, Mom’s not in her room. And the bed’s made. I get that mildly freaked out feeling, the way a character on a medical TV show acts when her loved one’s room is empty and she just knows the body’s already in the morgue.
I make the rounds of the wing, down to the physical therapy room and then the dining room, peeking into corners, searching for Mom. On my way back to her room, I stop at the nurse’s station to enquire.
She points to a narrow room, an after-the-fact offshoot of the hallway. “Your mom’s doing an activity,” she says casually, as if she thinks I hear those words every day. I try not to look incredulous.
“Oh, great,” I say. “It’s wonderful she’s getting involved!”
This time, though, I really mean the exclamation point. Sure enough, when I poke my head into the tiny room, Mom’s sitting comfortably in her wheelchair, with six or seven other ladies, listening to Debbie read a novel aloud.
Right then and there, looking at Mom’s back and hoping for her future, I tick a Yes box in my heart. The box next to the question, “Do you believe miracles happen in this day and age?”
Yes, I do. At the end of everything and everyone, I still believe in miracles.
Happy Ninth Blogiversary to ME!
Nine years ago today, I began my fallible exploits in earnest with my shortest blog post ever: “I find these truths to be self-evident…but, then again, I could be wrong.”
I started the whole thing on a dare, really. My oldest son Scott said he thought I might be able to make a go of blogging, and that maybe I’d even be able to “monetize some dynamic eyeballs.”
You probably know I’ve never monetized an eyeball or any other body part, but MAN have I had fun!
Thanks for sharing all, some, or even only a few moments of your life with me here at fallible! I hope we have many good years still ahead.
NaNoCryMo
So, here it is November 22. You may remember that I threw my lot in with the crazies who try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
I’ve accomplished this feat twice before, and since I had a wonderful novel idea outlined and ready to go, I figured November was a great time to make some fantastic headway. My experience with my own personal 50,000-word novels in a month is that they are truly horrible, so I did not intend to shoot for that particular goal. Instead, I figured ending the month of November with a respectable 20,000 words that didn’t need to be rewritten from now till Kingdom come would work for me.
I haven’t written 20,000 words, but I think I may have shed that many tears. And considering 1.) I am not a crier and 2.) My right eye has never produced tears in a quantity commensurate with my left eye since my brain surgery of Nov. 15, 1999, um. Let’s just agree that 20,000 tears is a LOT of boo-hooing.
Right this minute, I am looking over the November page of my huge wall calendar, the one with a different designer shoe photo on each day’s date. I’m trying to recreate exactly what’s gone wrong, trying to give an account—-even to myself—-of how my life has deteriorated so badly.
I love the Scripture that says, “Sufficient for the day is the trouble thereof.” I truly try to take one day at a time, even if my mind starts churning at 4 am and doesn’t stop until I believe I’ve handled all the details I must before I fall asleep again. But, O fallible ones, you should see this mess of a calendar.
If the sign of an out of control life is a messy purse, wouldn’t you think that gal could at least have a calendar where a single day’s events can be jotted within one enormous square?
Just an an exercise in something besides elder care, I am going to quote here the contents of my November page. Again, these items are scribbled across random days, with no regard for order or common sense or logic.
During the first week of November, things were relatively sane. We had one funeral to attend, for my dear son-in-law’s grandfather. Other than spending unplanned time with my daughter and her husband, who drove in from Indiana, things went as hoped. I wrote 5000 words that week!
Can I get an Amen and Hallelujah? Please?
Here are the rest of my notes from my calendar:
Nov 9. 11:57. Call her. Tracy. Dr. Holt can see Mom at nursing home.
Nov 10. Dr. Steven Gruenbaum
Nov 11. Alice = Mom’s nurse at Villa St. Jo. Dr. Holt’s phone number. Carol. By 2 pm, 4 times diarrhea. 11-20-09
Nov 12. Blank. I wonder what on earth THAT means.
Nov 13. (Crossed out: Doug GDX test, Discover Vision.) Mom admitted to Menorah Hospital after fall. First 24 hours called Observation. Dr. Gruenebaum. Disaster.
Nov 14. Doses of Vancomycin. Active: Prevention:
Nov 15. Clothing. Diapers. TV.
Nov 16. Mom to Dr. Bruce. 10 am. Shoulder.
Nov 17. Doug’s first eye surgery. (Crossed out: Mom sees Dr. Holt after lunch. Liz) Mom moves to Villa St. Jo nursing home.
Nov 18. 1-day follow-up for Doug’s eye surgery.
Nov 19. Michelle’s phone number. (Who in the world is Michelle?) Four BMs in night.
Nov 20. (Crossed out: Mom admitted to Menorah.) Mom’s C.diff is back. “Yesterday morning, man and woman. Rolling from side to side. They were staring.”
Nov 21. Mom admitted after midnight.
Nov 25. Villa St. Jo nursing home 10:30 care plan. 9:30 Doug to Discover Vision
Nov 26. Thanksgiving. Eat w/Mom? Doug with his fam?
Nov 27. Scott, Brooke, Kevin, Mike over——Brunch????
Nov 28. Katy called Dr. Peters 4 pm Friday 11-20-09. Dr. Sword—-switch to Dr. Geha he can call Suzanne Mary Linda
And now, from October, just so you’ll see what led up to this:
Oct 15. broken shoulder 1:15—Mom to Dr. Bruce. 10:00 Doug to Discover Vision
Oct 17. Marcia. Physical therapist. 20” wheelchair. 27” total width. footplates. Invacare. 20” firm cushion waterproof. standard. $390. 75. 50. 5.
Oct 18. Med history and medicines. Ask Nicole how long surgery and gen or local.
Oct 19. (Crossed out: Menorah—afternoon Mom—knee surgery. Stop all blood thinners 5 days before. No eat or drink after midnight. Get wheelchair van.)
Oct 21. (Crossed out: Doug to Discover Vision.)
Oct 23. Dr. Monaco. Kim. Nurse practitioner. Medical Group of KC. Anna. 3—5 days.
Oct 24. 390. 125. 515. Order # 16400406 Party here Sunday school Octoberfest
Oct 27. Doug and Katy dentist 8:30. Bridget to neurologist.
Oct 29. (Crossed out: 10-day post-op at Dr. Bruce w/Rebekah. 9:45
Oct 30. 9:00 Doug’s eyes pre-op. (Crossed out: 10:30 GDX test). $2650 per eye. $5300 total. Out with Colwells? 6:30. Classic Cup.
Oct 31. Call for return #. $395 total. Linda. Invacare SX5. Lightweight. $126. change. 3—4 hrs. sealed waterproof coating xtra
You should know that when things got really bad, I made no notes at all. I was too consumed with the actual events taking place. The stuff I left off the October and November pages tell the real story, the one that might get me sued for defamation or worse if I told it here.
UPDATE: While writing this blog post, on Nov 22, head nurse Bonnie called from Mom’s room at nursing home. If I had any space on my calendar during the entire month of November, I’d write this: Mom won’t accept treatment because Bonnie told her she’s there on her own dime. Medicare won’t $$$$. Said Mom is responsible party. NO!!! I am responsible party!!! Not Mom’s problem!!!!!
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I hoped to be published someday, I really did. Now it’s come to this. I can’t even decipher my own calendar entries.
If I keep it up, by Nov. 30, I’ll have shed a cool 50,000 tears for NaNoCryMo.
The Bible says God collects every one of my tears in a bottle, a truly comforting thought. But I’m pretty sure He’s gonna need a bigger container.
