The bright moonlight casts our shadows on the sand.

The breakers gleam white, curling in the outgoing tide.

Leaping, pirouetting,

My beautiful daughter dances down the dark beach.

Sharon Lucille Johnson Hackett

April 13, 1932 - October 26, 2009

My mom.

My mother has stopped eating now.
She has difficulty swallowing even water.
We have called the family, my brother is flying in on Monday.
He will be here for two weeks.
My guess now is that is long enough.

At the end, now, there is really nothing else to do.
I can only cherish these last days in my mother's presence,
and bear witness to her quiet passing.

Today is a perfect October day.

The sun is shining in a cloudless blue sky,

the morning chill has warmed up to midday.

We've had enough cold nights to turn the leaves,

and they are beautiful, turning every street and yard

into picture postcard autumn scenes.

I put aside my concerns and go for a walk.

It feels good to move, to let go of stress and grief,

to notice the trees, and people's gardens, 

the dogs down the neighborhood who usually go ballistic when I pass by, 

but don't today. 

I walk through the graveyard, past the big pine trees - my favorite -

pine needles crunching underfoot, 

and pause under the snaggly old chestnut tree

to fill my pockets with shiny plump brown chestnuts.

The greatest of these is love

My mother is now non-ambulatory and largely non-verbal.

When she does speak it is usually very soft,

and she does not articulate well enough to be understood.

We now have to feed her most of the time.

She isn't eating much.

My father tries to get her to eat, kisses her and calls her pet names.

He carries her to her chair, the bathroom, the bed.

She hallucinates much of the time, quietly now,

but otherwise is still self-aware and knows who we are.

I say "Hello, Mama, I love you!"

and am rewarded with a smile, a murmured "I love you too, darling"

that is only just recognizable.

This is all she has, now.

It is true, that 'the greatest of these is love'.

In the end, when everything else has gone, my mother still has love.

It's the only thing in her life that has lasted

and pretty much the only part of her that we can hold on to.

I see the world differently now.

One
foot
in
front
of
the
other
I can do that
One
foot
in
front
of
the
other

My mother is in worse shape than ever.

She shuffles past, clinging to my father's hands - 

this is maybe her 4th or 5th trip past me.

Hi mom, I say. Going to sleep?

No, she replies, I'm going to go where I'll be sane.

Earlier - when I tried, fruitlessly, to get her to settle into bed - 

she informed me that she was a skillet. 

It's funny, in a tragic way. 

We have finally learned that she has a urinary tract infection,

which for whatever reason none of her doctors have spotted till now

(despite the fact that it was the first thing my osteopath asked about,

months ago)

and we have been unable to get the antibiotics that the doctor's office

was supposed phone in to the pharmacy before the doctor

left on vacation.

They never called them in. Their office is closed.

So my mother has been roaming almost non-stop all weekend,

hallucinating day and night,

shedding so much weight over the weekend that this afternoon

I was able to scoop her up in my arms to set her into her bed.

It hadn't occurred to me till just now that we should have gone straight to the

ER, and had the doctor there give her antibiotics.

When people talk about the broken healthcare system,

Where do we figure in plain old incompetence on the part of the provider?

How much more does she - do we all- have to suffer through?

Years of this, apparently.

I wish for her doctors to have this same experience, up close and personal.

Well, I feel it must be said.

When someone loses a loved pet,

the tendency is to cutify, beyond anthropomorphization -

"that damned" dog becomes the "dear darling puppy",

and instead of "Get him out of here!" or 

"Look at what your (damned) dog did!"

you find yourself taking an extra step to avoid tripping on him

but he's not there.

You miss it then,

the constant presence,

the shadow dogging your footsteps,

stepping barefoot on the soggy chew toys.

My dog would wake me up at 3 a.m.

pacing in the hallway, nails clicking -

back and forth, back and forth.

In the rush of dinner preparations and cleanup

frequently I forgot to feed him

and he would come and stand in front of me,

and look

and sigh

until I finally put it together and got his dinner.

On walks he had to sniff and pee. Every vertical object.

Including, on one memorable occasion, another dog.

In his later days he started to lick everything he sniffed.

Eww.

Having a pet can be damned annoying.

But I do have to say, even so,

that this was a very, very nice guy. 

Stout-hearted, gallant, and courageous to the point of idiocy,

His was a dear and gentle soul.

Letting him go when he needed to 

was one of the most difficult things to do.

I miss him. It hurts.

But I'm grateful for the years he shared with us,

and I hope with all my heart that there really is a doggy heaven

with treats and things to sniff and lots of tall objects to pee on.

Rest in peace, Jackson.

You were loved.

For Jackson, August 26, 2009

As soon as the heart ceases to beat

the blood to circulate

the life energy to flow

the body seems unexpectedly light

insubstantial

which prompts the question

how much does a soul weigh?

Lawnmower blues

I got blisters, at my sister's,
helping to mow her grass.
I couldn't turn over
her old lawn mower
that thing is a pain in the ass.
I helped the girls bake
a chocolate cake
They helped me to sweep and to trim.
For her broken rib
I'm a considerate sib-
Now I'll leave her to sink or to swim!!

Some wee beastie

There is a mouse in the room.
I can hear it, nibbling,
teeth click clicking
rustling.
Damn.
This means I have to pull out
everything
until I find the mouse.
There are a shitload of books
in that bookcase.
I'm not looking forward to this.

My dad and I did some research.
It looks a lot like my mom has Lewy Body dementia,
which is different than Alzheimer's.
Either way, there's not much left of her.
I had no idea she could lose so much weight.
Tendons, muscle - what's left of it - veins,
Starkly visible underneath
the skin loosely draped over the bones.
I am conscious of being grateful for my own roundness,
My firm flesh, my strength and coordination.
At least the spectre of inherited Alzheimer's disease
can pass me by, since Lewy's appears to be random,
A hit-and-run disease, likely to spare me degeneration
but leaving pain and chaos in its wake
as my mother dies slowly, cell by cell by cell.

Aroma

My toeses smell like roses,
Because of the soap I use.
If my toeses smell like roses,
Will it fix the smell in my shoes?

My mother has been in a manic hallucinatory state all day,

since at least 4 a.m.

I have been up with her the whole time, pretty much,

eventually giving up on the idea of sleep

and just sitting in a chair in her room 

when I'm not shadowing her around the house.

The one phone call I got this morning was cut short when I checked on her

and found her lying on the floor of her room.

She can't sleep, can't wake, can't be still, 

lying in her bed talking and talking,

walking around aimlessly, not knowing 

what she's looking for or where she's going

her knees buckling sometimes every few steps.

I catch her, guide her to her bed -

"Keep walking, Mom, you're not there yet-

Walk, walk, walk -"

I lift her into her bed, her hands clutching my clothes,

pulling my shirt down over my breasts,

eyes already closed.

I can hear her still talk, ceaselessly, in her bed.

I'm getting tired.

Good karma

My friend makes me happy.

When I see him, I have to smile -

His name says itself, in multiples -

He opens his arms for a hug, every time.

True, he hugs everyone!

This is not a romantic thing, 

what I have with my friend.

We talk, sometimes we work together,

He's just that kind of a person.

He makes the world a better place

for being in it, and those of us around him

all feel the benefit of him. 

Such a deal.

I never really understood the phrase "empty-eyed" before.

How could someone's eyes reflect something, or nothing?

They're just eyes.

But now I look at my mother's eyes, and I understand.

Occasionally my mother still looks out at me through those eyes,

but more often than not they are vacant,

like a derelict building half boarded up,

completely empty. 

Sartorial disarray

What the hell is on my shirt? 

I had a clean white shirt earlier today,

and now it's got something purple -

something yellow -

ewwww, what is this here?!

And here I am, going out in public,

to the store, in this shirt,

because it's late,

and I'm going to come home and take it off anyway -

Oy, what has happened to my standards?!

Most of my summer so far has been spent inside,

Air-conditioned, temperature controlled-

so that when I finally get to go outside

I am struck by summer, all at once.

I take the dog out walking, in the evening,

The heat of the summer afternoon

gathered and pooled in the end of the day,

Dry, hot air

Blue July sky

High white clouds like streaks of tempura paint.

I am surrounded by sensations and smells -

The breeze comes

Off the field next door where the city workers have bulldozed a road

through the tall dry grass,

Off the hedges of blackberry bushes

and it smells of hot dirt

summer-dried grass

ripening berries;

The linden tree up the block is still blooming,

the scent reminiscent of green tea and honey

Of youth and lost love

the astringent smell of the dried blossoms crushed underfoot;

Roses, wilting in the heat from too many days of full bloom,

draped over the neighbor's picket fence;

In the graveyard the pungence of cottonwood trees

takes me back to childhood, my grandmother's log house

surrounded on three sides by cottonwood (the scent memory

completes itself independently, of dust and manure and sheep and sagebrush);

Fresh cut summer grass, hot pavement;

Summer, all at once and in itself, enfolds me

Gives itself back to my senses

Returns to me my history

of summer

of childhood

of self.

Metamorphic process

I have tendonitis.
It has flared up, painfully
The steering in my new car is stiff
I am ready to cry when I get in
driving feels impossible.

I look at my hands
my arms
holding on is too hard
and it hurts.

I have to let go.

I have a Zen moment -
What am I holding on to?
Why, exactly, am I in pain?
What must I let go of?

It only takes a moment
to come up with the next logical thought:
I must let go of grief,
of fear,
of need,
of pain.

My constant companions, these
it is time to let go.
---------------

My adult life has brought me more pain, grief and heartache

than I ever imagined, starting out.

It happens to us all,

That's just life, we say.

You take the bad with the good,

and just let it go.

I have learned my limits
my own courage,
and my strength, born of need
of love, and pain, and grief.

Apparently I have another thing to learn
one more educational opportunity in my life
If I don't learn about letting go,
I will carry my pain with me
Something tangible and destructive
which prevents me from doing what I need to do
from sitting in the driver's seat, literally -
a hard-copy metaphor for my own issues.

My therapist is going to love this.
And I still can't drive my damn car.
---------------------

My Mother's Hands

I have always loved my mother's hands.
When I think about her, it is her hands that I remember.
Long, strong fingers, nails unpolished but shaped in a pointed oval.
Elegant hands, capable hands, gentle hands.

.............................
My mother could chop firewood and haul it in, canned fruit and put up frozen vegetables,
Permed her own hair - all those little curlers and papers in the sink -
Spanked dogs and children - I think all of us kids tried wearing multiple layers of pants
so that we could get in trouble and not care if we got spanked.

My mother sewed, clever hands pinning and stitching.
Once she accidentally sewed a finger, the needle going right through nail and finger both -
I was usually at her elbow when I was small
and I saw it.

My mother was busy in the kitchen, usually,
Hands in dishwater,
Cooking,
Baking -
I, at her elbow, reaching under her arm to take the crumbs of brown sugar fallen on the counter.

She has a scar all down one thumb where she cut it with the big butcher knife
trying to chop up a frozen ham.
I remember it, watching the knife slice into flesh, the blood;
I don't think she even got stitches, just put a series of butterfly bandages on it to hold it closed
and kept cooking.

My mother played the piano,
played for herself while she sang and taught voice lessons
taught her children to play,
Demonstrating proper hand position - like you have an orange in your hand - now turn it over.

When I learned to ride a bike I rode it right into a rosebush.
My mother held me in her lap, sitting in the bathroom, and pulled rose thorns out of my hide
with her tweezers.

I learned to iron clothes from watching her,
standing at her elbow, her hands smoothing and turning the fabric
as she ran the big black iron over it.
There was always a big pile of ironing and mending
in the closet under the stairs.
I decided I wanted to iron one day - go ahead! said my mother. You think you want to iron?
I lasted maybe twenty minutes before I changed my mind.

...........................................
My mother had a habit of smoothing my face, my hair.
Her hands were cool, and smooth.

Even now, she does this,
her hands are so thin they are translucent
the light literally shines right through them so that they glow.
Her skin is the waxy white of old age and ill heath,
The veins great ropes of blue, webbing the backs of her hands.
She lies in her bed, hands reaching into the air
for something only she can see.
Her hands wring the blanket, endlessly twisting the sheet.

I say her name
She reaches up, smooths my face and my hair.

....................
I am proud of my hands. They are very like my mother's, and when I look at them
I can see hers, as they once were.
My hands are smaller, more square, browner
My nails are clipped short from days spent playing scales for students,
but still my hands are like hers.
I like them. They are capable, strong.

I reach out my hands,
I smooth my daughter's face, her hair.

Motherlove I

I sent my daughter off to her dad's house today.
She'll be with him through the end of the month.
It's always a welcome reprieve for me,
Weeks in a row without the responsibilities of motherhood.
Time to spend on myself, recharge, reassess, process.
I held her close to me before she got into his rental car,
held her head in my hand and pressed a kiss into her soft cheek -
whispered I love you sweetie to her. Memorized her feel, her hug, her eyes and voice.
Just in case.
Parting from your child, no matter how welcome the time out,
is always difficult.
The instinct to hold, to protect.
The uncertain look she gives me as she gets into the car.
The worry - will she be ok this time? Can she handle this?
Knowing that if anything were to happen to her, I would be over 2000 miles away.
I know that this is what her father goes through every time he says goodbye to her
With the additional pain of infrequent time spent with her
And I know that this is good for her
Spending time with the rest of her family
Enriching her life and her experience
Spending the time with her dad- never enough for either of them,
but all that we collectively can manage -
But I wait, every night, for the phone call -
Mom, I miss you. Mom, I really wish you were here. I love you, Mom.
Each night that the phone doesn't ring I wait, and wait, and finally
make myself relax.
She's all right. If she hasn't called it must mean she's ok.
But tomorrow I will send her something in the mail,
and leave her a voicemail,
so that she will have something of me with her.
Just in case.

My mother hasn't lost her sense of humor.

She dithers at the lunch table, the family going around her in eddies of movement.

Oh, I have to get out of here, she says, the familiar mealtime refrain.

What do you want, Mama? I ask her.

She turns, gives me an intense sparkling look -

I want SEX!

We all break into laughter, and she looks smug.

I thought you'd like that! she says.

My mother has discovered, much to her surprise, that she's not dead yet.

Upon realizing that a)she's still alive, and b)life has continued to go on,

she has found a pressing need to re-involve herself in life.

Family came to visit - her brother and his wife, her son and his family -

and she was delighted to reconnect, to love, to experience.

What are you saying over there? she wants to know. Let me come where I can listen.

Don't let me sleep so long, she tells me. Wake me up in a little while so I don't sleep so long.

Feeling the urgency of participation, she wanders, gets up and has to sit down again quickly, as her knees buckle.

We have to really stay on our toes, to get to her before she hurts herself.

Turns out that this is the heart-breaking part of watching her die.

Summer vacation

I have a mountain of laundry left to do.
A whole mountain range, in fact - lights, darks, handwash, blankets, sheets -
it rivals the Cascade range in size and scope.
I have to get it done before I can pack up a box for my daughter
so we can send it ahead to her dad's house for summer vacation.
I was supposed to get the car in for an oil change before we drive up to Seattle
but the garage is booked - can it wait till after the trip? I'll have to check the oil.
I had a list - thought I did - maybe I need to make a new one?
Dinner with Julia- a coaching with Richard - a lesson for Josh - Annie is going to stay overnight
before we leave, so we can get an early start.
What have I forgotten? Well, I don't know -
I forgot.

Bake

I went on a baking binge while my brother and his family were here.

It's always good to have an excuse to bake, so I did.

Saturday I baked a New Starlight cake with rum penuche frosting

and hazelnuts between the layers.

Sunday we held an impromptu birthday party for my niece

with a Black Midnight layer cake, with chocolate buttercream fudge frosting,

chocolate chips, and those little chocolate sprinkles they call Jimmies on the east coast.

Gramma slept through the party and could not be roused,

and she felt so bad on Monday morning that she had missed it

we did the whole thing again on Monday evening

this time with an Angelfood cake with warm chocolate pudding and whipped cream.

We know how to be bad in my family.

Thank heaven for the old Betty Crocker and Better Homes cookbooks.

In between and around cake we had strawberry shortcake with whipped cream

chocolate chip cookies

blackberry cobbler with more whipped cream

and finally, for my oldest brother's birthday the following Thursday,

a chocolate Devil's Food cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting,

toasted walnuts, and carmel ice cream. 

I would say that I'm done baking now

but it's strawberry season and you can't put up strawberries

without making a shortcake

or waffles

or pie.

What's a girl like me to do?

Insomnia

4:00 a.m.
Can’t sleep.
Hungry? Yes, but don’t feel
Like getting up.
Uncomfortable, achey,
What is it about 4:00 a.m., anyway?

--------
Grief makes you tired.
It weighs you down,
Saps your energy
Dulls your mind.

My mother leans on me

"Say, what's my name?"

she asks.

"Sharon Lucille Johnson Hackett," I tell her.

"Oh!" she says, "That's so sweet! I thought I'd lost you!"

My mother hears my voice, smiles sweetly.

Good morning, Mama, I say.

She looks at me and says -

If I wake up dead, will they charge me with murder?

My mother lies in her bed, choking and coughing. 

She has been hallucinating for about three days now. 

She never really sleeps, talking non-stop through the night hours, 

and never really wakes up during the day.

She eats with her eyes closed.

She falls back to sleep on her way back from the bathroom, 

her legs folding under her and her eyes closed.

My father has had no sleep. He is near a breaking point, from what I can see.

I don't know what to do to help him. 

He has prescriptions for three different medications to help her sleep - everything from Valium to an anti-psychotic drug - and he's afraid to give them to her because of potential side-effects.

I make him dinner when I get home from work, do the dishes, get my mother to and from the table, put her back to bed, send him for a walk, take her to the bathroom. 

Now he's trying to get to bed himself, and she's coughing and choking, it's been about ten or fifteen minutes now. She doesn't seem to be able to clear her throat of saliva, or mucus, or whatever is making her cough. 

He had been trying to get to bed while she was quietly sleeping, to see if he could sleep, but she has been coughing now until she's restless, talking again.

I don't know how to help them.

Field Trip

I went on my daughter's field trip. 

Her class spent three days at science camp last week.

I drove three hours up the coast to join them for one day,

and we spent five hours that afternoon doing "field study". 

First cooperation games - then sculpting a map of Oregon on the beach - then what felt like a two mile walk down the beach to the tide pools to look for critters (Mom, my feet hurt. Mom, my legs are tired. Mom, I am soooo tired. Mom, I don't want to walk anymore. Mom, I'm tired of this field trip. Grrr.) followed by a hike straight up a forest-covered dune and down the other side. Really, I mean straight up. 

Just past the place where Anna stepped on a bee's nest and the bees swarmed out looking for the culprit, the trail went straight up. We climbed up, using tree roots for ladder rungs. Halfway up, Bella (in front of me) says to Anna (behind me) "Hey Anna! I'm going to fart!"

And then I drove the three hours home.

Walkabout

Even my dog is drawn by the sunshine. 

I got a call at work on Thursday -

the vet clinic got a call from a woman who found him walking down the middle of the street headed right out of town, so they called me. 

How he got out, and wandered so far, I don't know -

but he seemed perfectly pleased about it all.

I guess he got tired of waiting for me to take him for a walk, after two weeks of perfect weather, and took matters into his own paws. Can't really blame him.

Warm weather has arrived at last.

winter was long, and damp, and cold and dark.

Today the sun shines, the sky is blue

last night the sunset was glowing peach and orange and gold

the evening balmy and perfect.

The neighborhood streets thronged with people 

Walking, biking, running, doing yardwork, playing at the playground.

The student ghetto was full of kids in bikinis or shorts sitting on their lawns.

Everyone came out into the sun at once, like milkweed bursting from the pod,

Hungry for the sunshine and blue sky 

after the winter that dragged on too long.

My life is in transition. 

The past is gone, the present is difficult - a tight fit.

The future beckons, tantalizing possibilities to contemplate

If I think about what could be

it makes it easier to survive the now.

As good as it gets

I called my sister in law to wish her happy birthday -

she's on a trip to Kentucky with her son. Eric is 6.

So far he's milked a cow, bottle-fed a calf,

named a kitten, driven a (big blue) tractor;

now they're going to ride go-carts.

Boy - when you're 6 it doesn't get much better than that.

I kind of wish I were 6 too.

My mother sits and talks to my daughter
Thinking she’s me
Telling her stories of my childhood, the same ones
I have heard all my life, over and over.
She smiles delightedly at my cousin,
Thinking she’s my aunt (long since passed away)
And calls me Mama, before she recalls
That she’s also been gone a long time.

The details of identity blur, are lost, but
We are familiar, beloved, and we belong to her.
I tell my daughter - she remembers with her heart.

The moon hung low in the sky this morning
Early, earlier than I wanted to be up.
The bed was warm, daylight savings time had me discombobulated,
But it was time to get up, so I did.
The light through the window confused me,
It was bright enough to be a spotlight.
It was the moon, at its fullest round,
Brilliant and white in the dark, dark blue sky.
By the time I let the dog out and came back
It was almost down to the trees
Turned golden in the atmosphere
As the sky began to lighten.
It was worth getting up for.

Mom has started seeing things,
Not sure what’s real and not -
Now everything is real, altogether and at the same time.
Don’t let that man cough on my food, she commands
Indicating the tv announcer.
There’s some one in there, she confides,
Patting her pillow - She’s hiding in there.
Really? I smile and smack the pillow, thinking
To drive out demons.
Oh no, don’t - you’ll hurt her! Mom cries.

My sister makes my mother laugh.
I get overwhelmed, worn out, grim
Until my mother says, who is she?
She’s here all the time!

But my sister grins
And says outrageous things
And makes my mother laugh.

My sister sings to her,
Dances her across the room
As she struggles to the couch
Says, where do you want to be, mom?
The couch or the chair, where to you want to be?

My mother sags, leans - I want to be alive!

End quote

Sundays, too, my father got up early

My father gets up early too. Does all kinds of things.
The older I get, the more I recognize him
In the lines of this, one of my all time favorite poems.
Doing his best to care for his family.
Coping the best he can with the circumstances
that are beyond anything
He ever recognized, bargained for.
Children, wife, life -
All battered, changed, broken.
And still, my father gets up early. Makes
Breakfast for his wife, gets her up,
Makes her take her pills, eat, take more pills.
She’s starting to get cross, to resist. He fusses,
Worries over her.
He worries for his kids-
Offers what help he knows how to give.
This is beyond what he was prepared for,
This has never been his role in life,
Caretaker.
And he’s still holding on, still trying to
Take care of all of us. Hangs on to routine,
Every day the same again.

What did I know, what did I know
Of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Late

It’s time to go,
Get in the car and drive to
The recital.
This student has been in school
A long time, twice as long as average
He deserves his audience.
I drive - first through rain, then hail
Then snow - ridiculous weather -
I see traffic stopped ahead of me. A firetruck?
Yes, a firetruck with flashing lights, traffic backed up.
I stop in the middle of the road, turn into a driveway,
Go back to a side road and cut across to the next main road.
I still have time to get there.
I drive to the church - no one there, wasn’t he going to
Sing here? Nope, I will check at the school.
A parking place opens up as I drive up, perfect. I will be exactly on time.
I walk up to the recital hall, see the performers
outside the hall waiting to go in
Are you ready? I smile and ask.
Ready? For the last two arias, they reply.
Did you forget it’s Daylight Savings Time today?

March Snow

It snowed this morning.
Early March, big fat flakes
Filling the sky
Drifting straight down, silently.
The dog bounced out into the wet white yard
Returning with a big grin and snowflakes in his fur.

Pressure
I’m feeling overwhelmed.
The world presses in from all sides.
I’m tired.
Every day I want to cry.
I don’t know what to do to make it better.
I finally realize that there’s nothing I can do.
I just have to keep going until I come out the other side
Wherever that is.


----
There’s nothing we can do about it, they say.
Just go home and wait.
Waiting for someone to die is depressing.
How sad, people say.
It must be so hard on you.
No one tells you about the endless days
Watching her fumble through her routine.
Day after day after day after day. Slipping
More each day.
My dad lived for another ten years,
The neurologist told her.
Oh my god, my mother said to me later,
Not another ten years. I don’t want to
Do that to any of you.
The problem is, of course, that my mother stopped living
When they gave the diagnosis.
Now she spends her days waiting to die.
There’s a big difference.

____
Ah, ah, ah! My mother cries out as she
Loses her balance, turns,
hits the table with her hip
Bounces off the chair and turns again
Ah, ah, ah - I finally reach her, catch her,
Hold her hands to steady her -
Just let me sit down here.
She’s ok, just shaken.
I hold her hands and lead her carefully
Across the room
To safety.
----------
My friend the nurse listens carefully, shakes her head.
That doesn’t sound like Alzheimer’s, she says.
Too much physical deterioration.
Haven’t the doctors done this test, or that test
Haven’t they tried to find out what else it could be?
I don’t know, I tell her. They all keep saying it’s Alzheimer’s.
Last summer our cousins, all nurses, clustered around and listened
And chatted - doesn’t look like Alzheimer’s to us, they say.
Sure there’s not a misdiagnosis?
She’s too much present, mentally
And too deteriorated physically.
Doesn’t act like Alzheimer’s.
But in the fall the neurologist gently discloses the brain scan results
Deterioration consistent with Alzheimer’s.
All hope is crushed.
My mother withdraws, prepares to die.
And now we’ve spent months, waiting.
Watching as she shrivels into herself
Crumbles away one ability at a time.
It’s as though she’s shutting down all exterior functions
One by one
As she hangs on tightly to the small thread of self
That ties her to life.
----------
No one listens to the daughter.
Get a second opinion, I insist.
Take her up to OHSU.
I call, I talk to people, I get the information.
I get nowhere.
After her first two falls I say, you need to go to the physical
Therapist, Mom. The osteopath massage therapist acupuncturist pain pills antidepressants.
You should be going to the gym. Let’s at least find another doctor.
Oh no, it’s too expensive. I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that.
Mom, you don’t have to live in pain. We can do something.
Oh no, it’s all right. I don’t want to spend the money.
Dad, you have to make her go. You have to take her somewhere
Talk to someone else
Find out what’s really wrong with her.
But it was all they could do
To do what they did.
I finally realized, you can’t make people do any more than they are able to do.
This was it for them, all they could do.
And in the end, would it have made any difference, at all?
-----------------

Poetic therapy

Words chase around in my head
Now that I am finally writing
They have been turned loose
Sorting, resorting
Tumbling, making new patterns
Describing my life
Making sense of my days
My thoughts
And occasionally I write them down
Setting them free in the world

February 28, 2009

My voice teacher died on December 2, 2008.
She was 90.

Her memorial service is tomorrow.

I can't not go, I have to go.

She loved to laugh, to eat and smile and
paint and talk and always, to sing.

She sang in the hospital, while
her organs shut down and
her daughter sat and held her hand.

At 90, she could still pop a high E
Still taught two days a week

Still mentored students around the world
by email, by phone

and me in her living room, every other week.

I miss her. My high E stinks.

I'm afraid I will disgrace myself tomorrow
bursting into loud tears
in the Old Church

but there is a hole in the world
where there used to be brightness
and colors
and music.

My mother
clings to me
as we walk
to the chair
the bed
the bathroom.

Why can't I remember
I just can't do anything anymore

She gets nosebleeds
I guess this is the end,
she says into the bloody tissues

She smells of mildew
of urine

She eats a few bites
and tries to escape her chair
I've got to get out of here

She leans on me, and says
I just don't want to go like this.

Health Food

Warning: this is a LOW-FAT chocolate cake!

Written in my grandmother's neat, precise handwriting
on a yellowed index card,
Devil's Food Cake
my mother's careful note next to the title -
Crazy Cake -
no eggs, no butter, no cholesterol presumably
3/4 cup oil instead, I used Canola
and 2 c. warm water with 2 T white vinegar
war-time stringencies
made bearable by warm chocolate
and ingenuity
I use extra vanilla in everything, a teaspoon becomes
a tablespoon (what does that say about me?)
I even used whole wheat for part of the 3 cups of flour
the recipe called for
(2 c sugar, 2 t soda, 1 t salt, 6 T cocoa powder, stir well)
I know it's better warm from the oven
with whipped cream melting over the top
but I will have to settle for chocolate sour cream frosting
(fat-free)
and walnuts.

eigth grade

this homework is killing me.
wouldn't you think by the time i'm 42
i'd be done with book reports
and algebra?

My daughter

My daughter is small, dark haired, with a face like a monkey.
She is very solemn and intense.
She screws up her whole face when she yawns and squirms.
She is my whole world when I hold her in my arms.
My toddler has bruises on her face where she twirled too fast and fell and knocked her head on wood.
My heart stopped, and started again. She moves so fast I cannot reach her in time to save her from her own momentum.
Bright eyed and mischievous, she has a crush on her dad’s work boots.
Maybe they taste good.
The empty beer bottles at Christmas are not safe on the floor by people’s chairs anymore,
We will have to remember to pick them up before the little busy blue eyed girl crawls around to pick them up and swig the dregs.
My three year old loves Bambi. She stands on the front porch, where sounds bounce from house front to house front all the way down the block, and throws her arms wide and sings: LOVE is a song that never ENDS! Until the echoes can be heard all the way to the other end of the neighborhood. My favorite: MY MOMMY IS THE BEST MOMMY IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!!
In preschool she plays with the boys. She’s too energized for the girls, they are boring. Miss Yoko is traumatized one day when I show up to pick up my child, who has climbed all the way to the top of the monkey bars and fallen on her mouth. There is blood on her lip where her teeth almost went all the way through. Miss Yoko, tenderhearted and responsible, is in tears. My daughter is unfazed.
Sunday mornings she and her dad have a ritual while I am gone to work. They get the Sunday paper and he pulls her in the red wagon to the coffee shop. They sit together, have hot chocolate and coffee, and read the funnies together.
My daughter is the bravest child. When life with her second grade teacher becomes unbearable, we switch her to another school. She starts her new school all by herself, while Grampa is newly home from the hospital after a massive heart attack and Mom is quarantined with the chicken pox. She takes it in stride.
The other kids in her group of friends, at both her elementary schools, follow her around like ducklings. I hear a hawk scream, or an eagle cry, or a wolf howl, to be answered by one of her groupies. They rush to greet her with open arms at school, at parties. Younger kids in line for the school bus call goodbye to her.
The future tantalizes, unsafe but fascinating. The years of my daughter’s life flow past, melt together, separate and eddy in pools of years in my mind, kaleidoscopic memories of blue eyes, wicked grin, infectious giggles. I see the young woman evolving before me daily, and I am infatuated, proud and fascinated and curious. We struggle through thirteen, fourteen, laughing and crying by turns, together.

AWD

My car is old. It’s dying.
The exhaust system hits with a clank every time
I exit my brother’s driveway.
Something is making a RRRrrrrRRRRrrrrRRRRR
And the transaxle clunks every time I make a right hand turn.
The headliner is gone
The carpet smells like spilled soda pop and apple juice and horse poop.
The front bumper is clinging, just
There is yellow foam on the windshield where I used Gorilla glue
To glue down the rubber gasket on the windshield.
I am stranded when the weather is bad, not daring to drive on ice
After landing in a sheep pasture last year.
I have my eye on all wheel drive.
If my car is old and sad enough, can I buy a brand new one?

Write one about baking!

Ok, I love to bake. I admit it.
I love to create, to mix and stir and make lovely smells.
Biscuits, cookies, pies, cakes. It’s all good.
Tender pie crust, fluffy biscuits, butter is better.
Chocolate pudding, whipped cream. walnuts, hazelnuts
Rum flavoring. South sea vanilla. Freshly grated nutmeg.
I made a plum pudding this year for the first time
And quickly became addicted to the golden sauce
Made with butter and cream and brown sugar
And of course Bacardi and brandy
Poured over the dense rich pudding.
Hungry yet?

In honor of Mr. Tumnus' cave

We have our own cave
Firelight flickering orange on the bricks
Picking out the shapes of books on the shelves
The shape of the wingback rocking chair
The wood of the harp frame.
We sit together
Sometimes we do homework
Sometime just reading or knitting
Sometimes TV
The dog snores and sighs in his sleep
The clock ticks
We are together
The fire crackles and settles

The apple tree

The raccoons in the tree are endlessly fascinating.
Leave them alone, I tell my daughter.
Let them be, the mama will get nervous and move them away.
She moved into the hollow apple tree one night,
Bright eyes reflecting light in the afternoon of the following day.
When the two babies got a little older they all disappeared, leaving the
Apple tree to the previous tenant, who liked to store her knitting in the trunk.

The plaintive tiger

He sits out in the foliage staring at the house
Until I hear him in my mind - let the cat in!!
And I open the door to let him climb the back stairs
Winding around my legs and telling me loudly and
At length that it took me too long to hear him,
that it was cold - or snowing - or raining -
And that he wants me to pet him while he eats
And I can’t leave him to eat by himself, the poor thing,
Who got left outside ( where of course he begged to go an hour, two hours previously)
He has the whole neighborhood mapped out,
Which neighbors like cats and will feed him,
Which will let him in and pet him,
Who leaves for work in the morning and doesn’t mind a feline escort to the car, or the corner.
He comes along when we go walking, tail held high.
Once he got locked in the neighbor’s basement for a week.
We gave him up for lost, the local birds returned to the backyard,
The neighborhood hadn’t seen him.
A movement caught my eye while I stood asking the neighbor about it
The cat flattened against the basement window
Waving wildly at me and calling to me at the top of his lungs.
After a week of incarceration he was pale, his nose bleached of peach,
And he was more interested in staying in my arms than in food or water.
There must have been something, mice at least, for him to survive
A week without water. Even his orange stripes looked pale.

My House

My house has room for us.
My house has sunlight and music.
My house has laughter and baking and dancing and running.
My house has tears and quiet and calm corners.
My house has stars and greenery and roses.
My house has magic.
My house has dreams.