Still dreaming

Been there, done that

Still dreaming of my bike trip.

But it was Mom yesterday and today.

She had a lot of attention when Son E and Sister S were in town. Was delighted with the boy: "He's so nice!" And he is.

Yesterday she seemed lovely and energetic compared to some of her bedraggled companions. The caregivers often put a little tasteful makeup on her and choose earrings that match her outfit -- a nice touch. We went downstairs and got her mail from the front desk and sat in the Bistro and went over it over coffee. It's all pretty much bills and junk, but she likes to hear my general explanations before concurring with me that we can throw most of it out.

I was startled yesterday, though, when she suddenly said, "Jon. It's just coming to me that your dad died."

"Yeah, Mom. He died four years ago."

She looked at me with big eyes. "I don't remember anything about it. I wasn't there."

"You were there, Mom. All the time."

She thought a bit. "I wonder if I was in Norway with the St. Olaf Choir when Dad died."

"No, you were there. In Ann Arbor. Do you remember him in the bedroom?"

"I was there?"

"You were there."

*

Today, church. We had a substitute preacher, a distinguished man with a rich beard wearing a huge kimono-like robe. He explicated a confounding parable and I liked it.

Mom can't quite follow a hymn lately, unless it's an old familiar one. She gets the Lord's Prayer pretty well.  We did communion, and then, at the end of the service, she shook the pastor's hand and said "Happy Easter."

Manitowoc

Days away

Kohler-Andrae State Park, Sheboygan 

We were up in Door County last week, and Friday to Sunday I biked home, 190 miles in three days. It was tough, much of it, as I am in no kind of shape. But fun. Sister L was here on the weekend, and I went over to St. John’s on Labor Day for the outdoor picnic with Son E, and Wednesday for Move and Groove. Mom seems more expressionless than ever, and it’s hard to tell what she’s taking in. At the picnic, she said, “I just feel lost,” and at Move and Groove, when it was taking a while to get everybody corralled, she said, “Let’s get going” and hitched forward and tried to start it herself. E has been making  daily visits — even Thursday’s singalong, the whole of it — which is a big help.

I’ve been sick and bedridden for two days, sleeping most of the time. Sore throat, plugged face. I’m staying away from SJ today so I don’t kill anybody. Julie will bring some flowers from the farmer’s market this afternoon. Tomorrow I’ll see about church. Julie’s mom and cousin Paulie are coming for church and brunch, and I’ll just wait and see about that, too.  

I think this month I will be moving to half-time at work. There’s a lot of change and upheaval there — people leaving, new software, new paper configurations, designers in Des Moines — and the extent to which it was fun is much diminished. But, in any case, this is something I’ve been hoping for and it will get me back to doing more of what I like to do.

Still life with food bag and helmet

Nylon coffin

Good and bad

We are in Door County -- third day here. A year ago when we were here, I got a call that Mom had fallen, and I contemplated driving down to sit with her in the ER. I didn't go, thank goodness. Those days, I hope, are behind me.

She seems improved. She has more energy than she has had, and will choose to stay up and commune with her friends in the penalty box after church, when before she would have sought the refuge of bed. She chats, tries to engage people, often not making much sense. But the tone is right. What's sad is the state of her friends. A couple of them have sunk to non-verbal states and sit with pasted-on smiles.

We celebrated her birthday Aug. 20 -- on the actual day. Mom has always been a big one for her birthday -- keeping track, making sure it's not just noted, but celebrated. So I brought flowers, chocolate cake, an outfit Julie had picked out, and dark-chocolate-covered almonds. It was enough. She got flowers and calls from a lot of the people she knows.

Her eating has become a problem. She puts food in her mouth, chews, but doesn't swallow. I urge her to drink water, but it's really hard to help. I asked her doctor a few months ago, "What does it mean to say someone dies of Parkinson's?" He said, "They can't eat."

Mom and the one-mile trip

Well, I'm loath to show Mom online. So here is me, with a corner of Mom. She'd been begging me for weeks to see the new condo, and I kept delaying, hoping she'd forget. Mom doesn't travel well -- though this was only a mile -- and I am, well, just plain not good at taking her out.

But today, after chapel, she seemed pretty chipper, and I loaded a backpack with extra diapers and cleaning materials, wrestled her out of the wheelchair and into the car, drove the mile, wrestled her out of the car and into the wheelchair, working up a hearty flop sweat. Down in the garage, she said, "I've never been here before."

We spent about 10 minutes in the condo, and there were no accidents. I showed her all the views, the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, the study, the bedrooms, and all the wonderful closets. She said, "It's nice. It's beautiful." And I have to admit that, for a moment, I made a little involuntary transition from doing a favor for my mom to being really happy, really satisfied that she had seen it -- for my ownself. Your mom should know where you live.

*

That was a good moment. In other ways, at other times, her place, and this job, are really getting to me. It's not that I resent the time it costs me -- though of course I do -- it's the way it brings me down. I took Mom to "Move and Groove" Wednesday, and there were, I think, seven residents there -- seven residents and seven kinds of misery. Joy was sobbing uncontrollably, John was agitated and wondered if he should be there, Joanne was staring unhappily at the floor, and B -- good old B -- has lost so much in recent weeks that she's only barely present. I thought I'd scream. Instead I left early, feeling bad that I'd abandoned Lauren, the leader, alone in room full of hurt.

The Island Revisited
Homage to Jimmy

Fury and calm

The Penalty Box

Sister S came week before last and Sister K left just yesterday. So Mom has had lots of attention. The Sisters bring a lot of energy to it -- getting her in the pool, taking her outside -- and she tries harder when they're here, summoning cogency and a determination to make the most of it. Meanwhile I have faded to a frequently seen, uninteresting object, like furniture.

It's OK.

Gannett, which publishes USA Today, has bought the Journal company, where I work, and there's lots of upheaval in the newsroom. In our little suburban shop we've lost seven or eight people, and we will be sending our stories and dummies to Des Moines for layout and copyediting. It's almost funny. We've spent hours in training to learn the new Gannett software, and meanwhile, of course, our bosses have chosen this week, launch week, to take vacations, so a few of us are doing an extra paper. Learning new software and doing more work. This is infuriating. The "servant-leadership" model is a foreign concept hereabouts, and the managers are all about domination and privilege. It is hard to hold my tongue, and sometimes I don't.

We got away for a couple days to the Vospers' island place a couple weeks ago. A lot of driving, but worth every mile.

The Fourth

Such a depressing week. Nationally, locally, momishly. Gun policy has got to change. Americans are so pigheaded about their "rights." What about the right to life? I like the New Yorker reporter I heard on the radio who said, bring a gun into your home to protect your family, and the likelihood of someone in your family being shot rises dramatically. By that very same gun you bought to protect them.

Mom's friend Dar died Friday, and it is really sad. She was 75, chipper, lively, in pretty good health. To look at them, you would've thought she would outlive Mom. She and Mom were buddies in Cranberry, until Mom declined and couldn't keep up. Still, they exercised often together. Dar had a stroke a week ago, lingered in hospice, incoherent, for a few days, until it was over. Her obit is here.

So I went in yesterday and we worked out a card, and I'll send flowers to the church. Mom  understood it and was clear-eyed, but then last night she told Uncle M on the phone that somebody had died, maybe her daughter. I straightened it out.

At church today she just could not follow the liturgy or sing the songs. She repeatedly dropped her bulletin, and looked so tired I asked her if she wanted to leave. She said no, then immediately fell asleep, slumped over in her chair, and I took her out.

Up in her room, she said, "How do they make this movie?"

"What movie?"

"This movie."

I put in her bed and she slept.

From the room across the hall, I could hear the ear-splitting shrieks of B -- she has frequent episodes  -- but when I left she was at the corner sitting calmly in her chair, her hair freshly washed.

*

We had a Black Lives Matter protest in Wauwatosa Friday. A guy sleeping in his car in a park -- he had a gun in his lap -- was shot dead by one of Wauwatosa's finest.

Here's a little taste of the protest:

Getting there

The moving truck

We had the truck come last Friday, and spent Saturday cleaning the old house. What an awful day that was. But now we're firmly ensconced, if not quite unpacked, and the condo -- ah, it's going to work out great.

We can't find anything and wander around looking tentatively into boxes, wondering where the cups are, the knives are, the bowls are -- especially the bowls. Funny how, when we packed, I'd finish a box, label it and say to myself, "I know exactly where that is," and three days later it's lost forever.

We don't have internet yet, thus my long absence. Without internet, well, you might as well not be living. OK, that's taking it too far.

Mom has champed at the bit to see the place, and so far I've fended her off. The one-mile drive would seem interminable to her, and I'm afraid she'd have a bathroom episode on our beautiful floors. But I'll probably bring her over Monday.

She was in the penalty box when I got here today, all the ladies lined up. Her face was red and drawn, her mouth hanging open. She said they'd been talking, but she couldn't remember the topic. Quite possibly they were all talking at once on entirely different topics.

We did her mail, and I showed her pictures of the condo, and we called Sister L and Sister S, and went to the Bistro for Dove bars. Mom talked about a woman named Pat, who had called her and wanted a good get-reacquainted chat, but Mom wasn't up to it.

"I couldn't hear, I couldn't get it straight, so I was miserable, so that was a failure," she said. Pat said she'd call back in a few days. "But maybe she won't. I don't even know her name."

It's a cruel thing, what she's going through.

Bicycles in the dining room.
And, where is that thing?

Getting there

My lair