Special Occasions

What Makes Them So Damn Special?

Anniversary

You can say that birthdays don’t mean much any more

But, you better not say it about your anniversary

So you get dressed up and take her out for dinner

Sitting at the table under the umbrella on Alberta Street

All of Portlandia walking by

And it is clear she doesn’t really know you

That you are her husband of fifty four years, today

It’s small consolation when she says

“I hope Tom will come by to join us for dinner.”

You smile and order more tapas and that earthy Basque cider

That makes you think of when you were together in Pamplona

Sitting on the square like Hemingway and his third wife Martha

Talking politics with the locals and sipping the house wine.

Tom Hampson, June 24, 2021

	That was nearly five anniversaries ago. Now, there’s nothing special about any of the many special occasions we might celebrate. For Woesha they only seem special if they are special to others and she finds herself among them. Of course, we are not even sure about that, but she does love the company.

Late stage dementia sufferers are usually otherwise occupied. Rather than open the card from her sister, or admire the flowers her son and daughter-in-law brought her, Woesha might need to move pillows from the bed to the crowded closet in the bathroom.

On Easter this year, some of the staff and a few of the residents at the encouragement of staff, donned bunny ears. Residents were wondering why. The Activity Director explains they are going to have an easter egg hunt. I imagine no one will find what they are looking for, but they might stumble on some colored eggs.

Activities staff always decorate the place—often with the help of residents. They cut out snowflakes, color eggs, make valentines, four leaf clovers—how lucky are we? Don’t be grumpy. Go along. They have fun. They want to please you. Knock yourself out. But, know it is for show, the one you are putting on. Don’t expect them to understand or glow with gratitude or reminisce. Although they might smile or nod or answer your question about who hops around the yard with a basket full of colored eggs, it’s only a matter of time until they won’t. So what are you going to do?

Freewrite 4-5-2021 Demons Came on Easter

It was actually the morning after Easter. The gremlins came to her early in the day after we dropped the kids at the airport. It was like the kids didn’t really come. Maybe they did come, but, all they left were spaces in the air. Spaces haunted with gremlins—loneliness, abandonment, confusion. And me. Who? Was this Halloween not Easter?

As soon as we got in the door. “Where did everybody go? Why did they leave without telling me? Where’s Tom?”

She went to the bedroom to resume her packing to go find home. Over the next few hours she lost me maybe five times, found me with a burst of recognition, getting my hopes up, then cast me out of the scene. I became a ghost who was somehow responsible for the kids appearances and leavings.

Exhausted from the weekend, I lost it. I called her cell from the couch and told her I’d shown up five times and each time she refused to recognize me and I’m tired of it. I’m setting boundaries here. Which of course is ridiculous, since she lives in a world where boundaries are like snakes. I said maybe I wouldn’t come again. Who’s the snake now?

She broke down, giant sobs from the closed bedroom door. I rose up and rattled the front door—pretended to come home for the sixth time. “Hello, anybody home?” She came out and hugged me desperately, and it seemed I was back. I didn’t try to get her ready for bed. Just got her to lay beside me and we cuddled. By the time I turned off the light she was calm and sweet. She wanted to know all about me, where I came from, where I was born. Gawd. I pulled the blanket over us.

In one sense I had chased some of the gremlins away and filled the space. A thin spirit of the man next to her, under the cover of a gossamer shroud. A gossamer shroud. Yesssir.

xxx

I know a man, who in the early years of his wife’s dementia, took her back East to spend Thanksgiving with his family as they had done every year since they got married. The last time he took her was a disaster. The trip filled with endless questions and near panic—“Where are we, where are we going, why are we here?”

The big dinner was uncomfortable for everyone and for one follow up social event he was asked not to bring her. The next year she was in memory care so he decided to take the trip solo. He heard through the family grapevine that someone suggested he had abandoned his wife for Thanksgiving.

When he got back his wife was delighted to see him, did not know he had been gone, and he was informed by staff that she was actually quite happy for the week he had been gone and she did not experience the episodes of grief she has when he visits her regularly. Now, how do you like that? A classic caregiver “fuck me” moment.

Why do we go to such great lengths to be such saps?

Freewrite 2-9-2021 If At First You Don’t Succeed

“If at first you don’t succeed, surrender. There is something you don’t yet understand.”

Rochelle Myers, Michael Ray, Creativity in Business,

By”surrender” they mean let it go for the moment. Breathe, meditate, take a walk, ask yourself penetrating questions, accept your powerlessness in the face of it, let the universe, spirit, doubt, wonder come in. Draw a picture, make a collage, something. Save the wall and your head a few indentations,

In the mid-eighties, Woesha and I went to a workshop put on by these folks as part of a Stanford Alumni program. I’ve used some of that material in my own work many times over the years. It’s great for getting unstuck. So, why haven’t I thought about it until now?

She doesn’t want to take a shower today. It’s been five days. Rather than applying more pressure, I should surrender. I don’t ask her a question. I ask the bathroom mirror, “I wonder why showers are so hard to take?”

She says, “When I’m at home I take a shower every day.” It’s true. Bingo, of course. Right there in front of me. She’s not home. “Okay, well let’s wait until we get home.” Hopefully, she’ll feel like this is home before she starts to stink.

Now if I can just figure out why today’s outfit has to be the exact same color to “match”. I surrender.. I will not, as I have done, show her the Talbot’s catalogue and mansplain how the models’ outfits match even they are different shades of the same colors or even complimentary colors. A fools errand. Let her take her time, wear what she wants. We’ve got nowhere to go. Now time is our time. Breathe.

xxx

It’s the expectations that trap us, not the dementia. Wanna have Christmas? Fine, keep it simple, go easy on yourself. It doesn’t have to be December 25, driving through the traffic and the wind and snow. It can be Christmas whenever it’s convenient. She’ll love it or ignore it just the same.

Whatever you do, most of what you will do is for you. Ask yourself penetrating questions.

“Why is this important to me? Because on that day, we always gave each other…..”

And now you can’t. She can’t, and if you do, it will likely go unnoticed—like the flowers I put on her window sill that are now in the closet, the vase in the bathroom.

I realized so much of what I do is to try to keep her in this world. My world. The world we used to agree on or argue about. Look baby, it’s right here, before our very eyes. Look. But, it’s not.

They say I need to try as much as I can to be part of her reality. Okay. But, that is really boring, unsatisfying, frustrating, depressing. Everything in her room is a mess. Why did they put those pants on her? What has she done with her toothpaste?

How can I lower, even discard my expectations and just be present? I did stock her closet with a guitar and a banjo.

“Do you want me to play you something on the banjo?”

“Yes, I do,”

I play her a few songs. I don’t expect much. She may sit on her bed and listen and sometimes even move her head in time to songs I think she recognizes. She might get up and walk out into the commons to see what is going on. Then I know. It’s time for me to go to my other life. The one where I’m mournful, and hopeful and asking myself questions I can’t ask her.