Waiting

I'm not feeling particularly grim. It's just that the most recent photos I have are of this old graveyard, plopped down in the middle of nowhere and filled with people buried by other people who have long since passed away. I like the sense of distance and flatness behind the attempts at permanence left by those wanting to remember their loved ones. The graveyard also sports a magnificent scary tree.

My friends and I used to take our dates to old Kansas graveyards and use flashlights to read the old stones. It was spooky and the young women stood close to us, which we appreciated. We didn't push any stones over. I'd like to think the denizens of the cemeteries appreciated our youthful vigor (horniness) smiling to themselves and remembering standing close to someone lovely in the dark. An optimist, I always imagine ghosts are friendly.

For reasons I won't go into, I found myself accompanying a young woman to a local woman's health clinic so that she could have an abortion. She has a boyfriend, and was 5 weeks along, and was in no position to carry or raise a child. I found myself acting on my values and supporting this young woman's choice. I also found myself spending the morning in an abortion clinic waiting room, a place where there appeared to be very few middle aged men. Very few. One. Me.

I have been a supporter of this health clinic for many years and was pleased with the care and professionalism displayed by its employees, as was the young woman in question, who opted for an option involving taking some medication and waiting for a number of hours. This was somewhat uncomfortable for her, but certainly preferable to dilation and curettage. We waiting and passed the time with a minimum of angst. This is a very practical and matter of fact young woman.

The waiting room was truly a feast of human interpersonal dynamics. There were a number of couples: mostly young women, college age, and their boyfriends, who sat quietly, dutifully, and held purses. One woman was pretty verbal about the wait, her discomfort, and was accompanied by her grandmother, a very patient older woman very comfortable in her own skin. There were a few daughters and mothers, and a couple whom the staff appeared to know by name, perhaps "frequent fliers" abhorred by anti-abortion activists who claim abortion becomes an "easy" form of immoral birth control. Nobody seemed very comfortable.

Behind us, a carpet of music, a sort of marriage of gentle jazz and Zamfir, master of the pan-flute. It was innocuous and constant, new-age muzak, at once calming and annoying. Best of all, there was a television, large and high on the wall behind me. It was not hooked up to cable or dish and it played, one after another, episodes of "Maude." That's right: "Maude."

Maude was the Norman Lear sitcom in the seventies that was the "answer" to "All in the Family." Maude was supposed to be the liberal foil to Archie Bunker, everyone's favorite bigot. She showed that we liberals could laugh at ourselves, sort of. Maude failed artistically, in my opinion, because it couldn't quite skewer Maude the way Family skewered Archie. Maude tended to teach us things, rather too overtly I always thought. My Mom was a serious politically active feminist and she hated Maude. And here we were, sitting and waiting for the biologically inevitable and preternaturally evasive result of a chemical procedure, listening to episode after mediocre episode of a situation comedy so dated as to be totally irrelevant to all but a couple of the people in the waiting room. Grandma and me.

It didn't take us long to realize that the first episode of Maude playing was - I'm not making this up - "Maude gets an Abortion." Maude, creeping up on menopause, finds herself pregnant, and Arthur, her impossibly patient and long suffering doormat husband, and Maude do an endless dance of "I want the baby because I think you want the baby," when, of course, neither of them want the baby. One direct conversation would have solved the whole issue and saved us from the rest of the episode. No one talked about when life begins or the potential of the alleged zygote sprouting in Bea Arthur's still fertile loins. The plot was more Lucy and Desi meets a controversial issue than any useful explication of what was, and is, a highly charged and difficult moral and religious issue. We sat in a waiting room, securely locked out of the medical and business portion of the clinic, the receptionist tastefully protected behind artful bullet proof glass, our phones and back packs safely stowed in the entry areas, listening to Maude patter on about Arthur wanting a late in life child and so she should want it . . . him . . . her. . . it.

At one point a very cool staff person came out and apologetically changed the CD. Hopes rose and fell. More Maude. She explained that the Board of Directors had discussed music and television in the waiting room and the result was all they could agree upon. Maude and Zamfir. She explained that Maude was historic in that it was the first prime time program to openly address abortion during prime time.

Several seasons later, the young woman and I made our way out of the clinic. Her care was excellent and she was gratified by the treatment she received from the professional staff. These are dedicated activists who risk their lives daily to provide necessary care to women and I'm grateful for their spirit. Activism can often subsume art and insist that art serve mission. Thus it becomes tone-deaf, oblivious to irony, particularly it's own. A little Sinatra, perhaps: The Lady is a Tramp.

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider
She didn't care if the whole world looked
Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her
She was a sister who really cooked

And then there's Maude. . . .

What did Columbus do for his mother?

Would you tell this guy he didn't discover the route to India? What an opportunist!

I'd add a recent photo, but my last batch was at a local graveyard and while I like those photos I don't feel like a black and white graveyard this morning. I don't feel like extolling the virtues of Mother's Day, either, although we're having quite a nice one. Columbus, if he was here, would no doubt claim to have discovered it.

Celebrating a day without scheduled obligations is what I'm about here. Yesterday I sat among new corps members queuing up for physicals, agonizing over urine tests, quaking over injections, sat through three sessions of therapy in which no one had an epiphany, not even me, dropped by my pal Chris's house after work for a couple beers, reported home to mow the front yard in the crisp, really crisp evening air, did some Mom's Day shopping then came home and went to bed early. I used to get resentful about running around, working Saturdays, sessions without epiphanies, but I can usually talk myself out of that now. I put Beck on the car stereo and cranked him. Very satisfying!

I think there's a point where we don't separate work from home from chores from leisure so much. Barnes and Noble was cool when I got there. The yard looks great. My clients deserve the same right to struggle that you and I deserve. Nothing meaningful comes without some struggle. My privilege is sometimes to sit with them as they struggle. If work is meaningful, does it really take away from my life? I think not. Doing something pleasant for my wife is not so much of a chore, really and I love the way the yard looks when the grass is freshly cut. I even enjoy successful weed whacking. Being with my Mom every Sunday morning has become something of a moment of "worship" for me. As part of a routine, it puts me in a regular place in what's left of her life. Sometimes we have a "moment," what passes for epiphany, and sometimes we don't. She can be unsure of my name, my identity, my place in her shattered history, but she recognizes me and smiles, letting me interrupt her snooze. I take my regular place in the final stage of her journey, however long it is to last. Then I'm going to run a few errands, do the back yard, whack the weeds, make some soup or stew for supper because it's still a chilly spring.

I think I'm through my Spring depression, as predictable as - well - Columbus Day. Depression is an opportunist as well, sliding into the spaces between things, reminding us of the dark places. Dad died about this time six years ago, our good friend Diana died the end of April. Anniversaries are more predictable than epiphanies, but I'm always surprised to recognize that I have again slid into a darker mode. I'm naturally optimistic and always believe I can soldier through. I swear I don't think about the end of April, the beginning of May, in negative terms, at least not in advance. Once I realize that my mood has darkened, I have become better at talking back to myself, at honoring the sad dark earth between the green shoots, and taking in the rhythm and contrast of my moods. Would I avoid this seasonal sadness if I could? How is it not part of me, like my history, like the inevitable losses of those I love? How is it not like meaningful work, necessary chores, rituals of mowing, trimming, repairing? An only child, I have always talked to myself. Now I talk back to my darker self, remind myself to enjoy the sun, the green, my friends, my family and to honor the sad things in life.

David Bromberg wrote "I have somebody else's blues / in the midst of an almost perfect day." My therapeutic self urges him to integrate. One's blues are one's own. One's bathroom, one's laundry, one's work, the closeness and laughter with old friends, the sudden distance between some of us where closeness always seemed inviolable, these are part of life's syncopation. Hop into the conga line and dance!

Holy Ground for Sale, Sunday morning off.

A church for sale in Maryland - something about God's house as common real estate amuses me - another intersection between the ethereal and the corporeal. How much is God's house worth on the open market? If no congregation is currently using it, has God vacated? Is He a tenant, awaiting the next landlord? What if Hindus buy the place? Will He be a room-mate? Vishnu stays up late and plays the radio loud. There's no cross on that steeple, so they're obviously ready for anything.

This morning the bald woman with the bandanna who delivers our paper has not arrived. We're sitting together, Robyn and I, she with her tea and me with my coffee, enjoying the cool quiet of early morning after a long soaking rain last night. Tye is at our feet. The kids were out late, Caitlin at prom with a friend and Walker up the street with a couple pals (no bonfire last night - only a muddy party in someone's shed, and she's "annoying") and they're sleeping in, looking more innocent than they tend to when awake. As long as we don't disturb them they'll remain children for a while, without the smirks and witticisms that remind us they're approaching the front door of adulthood. The paper woman has many vehicles, most of which idle badly, so we can assume that she'll show up in a while, late, with someone else's vehicle, hurriedly lurching down the street from box to box, making up for lost time while the rest of us sit in our comfy chairs and note the disturbance in our routine. Paper's late. Damn! More coffee. There she is. Same car - maybe she just decided to sleep in a little, too. It'd be a real treat for her. Have one on me, bandanna lady!

On this, the one day that I have no appointments or obligations, I give thanks, primarily for this peaceful feeling I have, this feeling of rested alertness, of transient well being, of right things being in right places, of the world in a certain order. By now a potential congregation has occupied the church, placed an appropriate representative symbol atop the steeple, filled the cupboards of the church school with Tang and Nilla Wafers, and settled it's cumulative rear end in the long dark polished pews which once sat lonely in the sanctuary. God's unpacking his eternally omniscient suitcases in the Upper Room, relieved that the new owner isn't a cult or a hippie co-op. Let the right living commence! We're all ready.

Emotional memory

The photo here may imply a darker mood than I'm really experiencing. I'm finishing up editing the graveyard photos I took the other day. I jacked up the contrast on this one and now I'm trying to decide if I've gone too far.

Going too far and reeling it back in is a pattern with which I have some familiarity.

It's early Spring and I found myself surprised by the seasonal depression that surprises me every year. Dad died the first week in May. Our good friend Diana died at the end of April. It seems that I conspire with myself to ignore these dates every year. What I notice is that I'm getting angry about things. My attitude becomes more negative. Many of you become more irritating. I don't suppose you'd notice that, being the way you all are, but I lack the patience to tolerate you that I might ordinarily have. So, I ask myself, in some moment of reflection, why I'm so grumpy and a little voice says "It's April, the cruelest month, the season of people wasting away." I realize that I'm dancing familiar steps in a dance that always seems to include a little surprise. Insight and self-delusion doing a tango in the new grass.

I had a physical this week and my doctor helps me manage my depression (actually she manages the treatment - I manage the depression). She went over the challenges in my life that she well knows contribute. How's your mother? How's family life? How much are you working? I tolerate this litany and for a moment realize that my "not that bad, really" approach falls short of the mark. All in all, things are going well. Along the line, though, we pick up a load of grief and loss, sadness that begs to be recognized even though we don't want to give up the time, ruin an otherwise beautiful day by giving in to sorrow.

It's Sunday, my day off. I go to see Mom in a few minutes in her comfortable Memory Care unit to bear witness to her entropy and titrate a little sorrow in what feels like a manageable dose, regular and small in the way that we build up immunity to bee stings or snake bites. It's not that bad. It's the end of a productive life, inevitable as . . . taxes.

I learned at my physical that I'm a little more than an inch shorter than I was before my accident. Now I'm just a little over 6 feet tall. My friend Chris cheerfully announced that we're all getting smaller from here on out "so it's just going to get worse." I was drinking his beer and so I allowed this impertinence. I would have been a lot shorter in a wheelchair.

I read recently that people with Alzheimer's Disease who can't remember anything from minute to minute still benefit from regular visits from loved ones. I know this is true. I still benefit as well. I remember things about Mom and about our lives together. I remember things about myself. The idea, I think, is that emotional memory is longer lasting than conscious memory. I know that when I was injured I didn't see Mom for quite a while. When I saw her again, she couldn't put her finger on it, but she seemed a little hurt . . . or perhaps not hurt, but aware that I had been gone. It could be my imagination, but she seems to be on a more even keel when I go regularly to see her, even though she forgets I'm there each time she closes her eyes.

After I visit Mom, I will work in the sun, in the yard, and bathe in some vitamin D. The answer to the emotional memory of long held sorrow is the sunny morning. Ah.

Sacred Ground

There's a little old graveyard on my way to work in Vinton, just off Highway 30. Because I pass there every day, and because I love its scraggly tree, I stopped yesterday to take some shots that I've been meaning to take. I think black and white is best for cemeteries.





I just had a little time so I didn't stay long, but these missed opportunities chafe at me, and I've looked at this cemetery all Winter, thinking about how old and lonely it is. A farmer was out in his tractor, plowing the surrounding field. I wonder if he comes and mows. All the graves are old, from the late 1800's, and some have pretty expensive granite stones. This one was more economical.

My Mom and I used to go do grave rubbings. You place a sheet of newsprint against the stone and rub with crayon or charcoal. The result is a negative of what was written on the stone. Another way to read them is to go after dark and shine a light straight down the length of the stone, enhancing contrast.






My love of signs continues. Sacred is where you say it is. A kid asked me one time, "Mr. Thompson, where do you worship?"

"Everywhere I go," I told him. Everywhere I go.

Membership

The law of unintended consequences: "Any intervention in a complex system may or may not have the intended result, but will inevitably create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes."

I am working on arrangements for Mom's burial, something which is turning out to be more satisfying than I thought it would be. Trappist monks outside of Dubuque make really beautiful wooden caskets. The people in charge of the Old Welsh Cemetery in Sharon Center are very pleasant and helpful. After the roads dry out I'm going to go out and pick out a spot. "Tell him not to come yet!," Mr. Pate hollered from the background as I talked with his wife, "it's a dirt road. He'll sink to his axles!" The Pates live on a century farm nearby which they'd be proud to show me. It sounds like fun.

My mother's family is prone to hyperbole. Actually, I'm prone to hyperbole. They just lie. If the sentiment calls for it, or if it makes a better story, they just make it up. My Aunt Joan and my mother were close, and they would get together, knock back a few martinis, and tell each other that they would take care of each other. "We promised we'd always be family for each other," Mom told me. It didn't really work out that way. After Aunt Joan retired, she sank into alcoholism and dementia. Her beautiful apartment, filled with marvelous antiques and art, devolved into squalor. She had her groceries and liquor delivered by John's grocery and she didn't leave the place. At the time, I lived three blocks away but she never once visited our home, telling my mother "I can't smoke there." We invited her a few times. I would stop and chat on our way to and from.

At the time, Mom was preoccupied with taking care of my father in their home and had little time for anything, not even grandchildren. She felt guilty and did nothing in response to Aunt Joan's decline. Her relationship with my father trumped all, and perhaps that's as it should have been. They had a unique, intense, and very loyal tie, those two. I remember visiting them after I married my first wife, Nancy, and realizing that I was no longer in that "club." Close, but no cigars. Perhaps that's what growing up means to everybody. To me it was both a sadness and a relief.

Aunt Joan told Mom that she had a "plot" at the Welsh Cemetery and that there was a place beside her when she died. That's where Mom wanted to be. It's a lovely old place, grassy and well kept, with graves dating back to the 1800's and a small church next door. Knowing that things are not always as they seem, I asked the Pates to look and see if there was anything there with my mother's name on it. There is not. What is there is a "plot," which means space for about seven graves.

I messaged my cousin Paul on Facebook to see what he knew about things. He first sent me a medium length message telling me that he was sorry about Mom and that he didn't do messages on Facebook. My email server was down yesterday, so after a while he sent me another rambling message full of good will and some useful contact information for his sister, the cousin with the paperwork for the plot. As his message continued it recounted the recent feuding amongst his clan, full of misunderstanding, spiced with recrimination. I recalled Mrs. Pate saying that Sarah called, very angry, reminding her that "My mother paid for that spot!" (There were some mix-ups with the last sexton, I guess, and the Pates have been organizing the mess, according to Jerry, the minister of the Old Welsh Church.)

Paul told me about Aunt Joan and Sarah going together to the plot and picnicking together. Sarah and Aunt Joan had a close, tumultuous relationship. Aunt Joan was a fierce and angry parent, prone to guilt trips, moody and intimidating. (She was always very kind to me, I must add, but by all accounts as a mom she was a bumpy ride.) I suspect that further inquiry into this plot may lead to more drama and intrigue than I am ready to undertake. I suspect it would make me more satisfied with my status as an only child, now that the logistics of moving, repairing, selling, inveigling and persuading are mostly finished between my mother and I.

Mrs. Pate has explained to me that a person can decide to purchase a "plot," which has room for a number of burials, "more room if you cremate!", she informed me cheerfully, or a person can buy a "membership" in the cemetery, which allows for a single grave. I'm not a big joiner, but there's plenty of room amongst the decaying Welsh folks of Sharon Center, according to the cheerful Mrs. Pate, and I believe a single spot, near Aunt Joan but perhaps not right beside her may be just the thing.

I'm thinking a little bitty graveside service with Jerry, the Congregational minister, with the cool wooden casket, perhaps in secret to avoid family hyperbole, and then a memorial service for Mom in Wichita, where her active life and contributions happened. Funerals are for the living, mostly, right?

dental work and other intricacies

There was a very popular book in the '80's (I think) called Passages, in which Gail Sheehy outlined the many stages of life. I think I'd better actually read this book. The idea is that there aren't a few - there are many of them. I agree. It's probably on my Mom's bookshelf.

Taking Mom to the dentist yesterday gave me a lot to think about. She can barely stand up and has poor balance these days. Her cognition, such as it is, lasts moments. I had to remind her that it was me pushing her in her wheelchair. At the dentist I stood in front of her so she'd have a frame of reference. Transferring her from chair to car and back was an interesting dance. I learned quickly that you can't muscle her. She moves very slowly and with much anxiety and my urge was just to pick her up and move her. She told me "that feels like knives!" I learned to have her put her arms around my neck and dance with me with slow small steps, explaining each step as we went and praising her. The hug was reassuring and she seemed to calm down.

I prepared the dentist's office for the visit, explaining that Mom was in "end stage Alzheimer's" and thankfully they understood that long term dental prophylaxis made little sense. My once patient Mom now suffers little intrusion and has been known to clock impertinent Summit Pointe staff with her coffee cup. If you leave her alone she's fine in a minute (literally) but woe betide you if you push your luck! Dr. Berst looked into Mom's mouth and found that there are no rotten teeth (the reason for the visit). The exercise in patience ended with the attempt at bite wing xrays. I stepped out of the room for a second and heard Mom: "Get away from me!" The dental tech was good, but she's the loud chatty one. I can't tell you how often I have wanted to say that. Home we went with a new flossing tool and some mouthwash.

What I appreciated about the visit was their understanding that these days it's about making Mom as comfortable as possible. For a while the cardiologist still wanted to see her, the optometrist insisted on running her through a bunch of tests, even though she just needed to replace her glasses. We're not sure how Mom is processing visual input these days anyway, and she's lost those glasses again. If Mom's tooth is not rotten and there's nothing giving her pain, she gets a free pass from dentistry. A major heart attack at this point would not be the worst outcome. Somewhere, the spirit of my Mother, often absent from this withered body these days, is hovering and saying "screw cardiology!" It's my job to remember her, even in her presence, and to be pragmatic.

Mostly Mom sits in a comfy chair and sleeps, waking occasionally. Her hands roam around her lap, feeling and investigating wrinkles and folds in the blanket, her eyes closed. Sometimes she's mutter something. "See you in the morning."

I had forgotten that bedtime ritual from my childhood. Every night when she tucked me in:

"Good night." "Sleep tight." "See you in the morning!"

The other morning I had just helped her sit down in the big chair. She really hates sitting down. She can't see what's behind her and she feels as though she is falling. It feels very out of control and she says "ohh, ohh!" and we have to talk her through it. I forget what she said, but it was something about how pitiful and helpless she felt.

I told her: "Mom, you're a very accomplished person. You taught the most disturbed kids in Wichita for 12 years. You worked for Cerebral Palsy Research and supported hundreds of disabled people through the process of deinstitutionalization. You started the Independent Living Center for brain injured people, the Women's Equality Coalition, and Woman Art/Woman Fair to promote female artists. You took care of me and took care of Dad."

"Thanks," she smiled. "I needed that," and leaned back, and dozed off, hands again wandering her lap. Good night. Sleep tight. See you in the morning.