Fleeting Memories

We were returning from dinner at Swarthmore Pizza tonight, and we noticed a baby bunny trying to be inconspicuous in the backyard. From the ramp that leads to Mom’s door we pointed to the rabbit and she smiled. Alan asked Mom what the bunny’s name was. After deciding against Bugs Bunny or Peter Rabbit, Mom decided he must be called Peter Cottontail. We all enjoyed a few quiet moments as the little rabbit crept away through the thick grass. It wasn’t easy for Mom to see the bunny. Her vision in one eye is seriously impaired by macular degeneration, and she has cataracts in both eyes. Still, we all laughed and marvelled how tiny the little critter was.

The little rabbit was no big deal. But that’s just the point. We miss so many of the best moments of our lives because we are preoccupied with the significant and urgent things that press in on us all the time. I am so thankful, that Alan comes almost every week. We go out to eat, we watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune with Mom. We talk, we look at old photos sometimes. Mom can’t remember today’s little bunny, but it was time well spent. Mom’s decline has changed me. I hope that I will always savor the little things, now while Mom is here, but in everything that lies ahead as well. She is teaching me to be less hyper, less type “a.” It’s good.
Shalom tonight, rjb

Life is pretty simple for Mom these days. After I get her out of bed, and dressed, we wash up and brush our teeth. Then it is breakfast time. I really believe that her Cheerios and her hot cocoa are the best part of her day. That’s why I love to give her the cocoa. I like to hear her say, “yummy, yummy. I like to see her linger with the cup by her chin and obviously savor the moment. There is so little that engages her anymore.
This morning I put I Love Lucy on for her. A year ago mom would have giggled and laughed at some of the slapstick antics of Lucy and Ethel. Today, I don’t know if she even remembers what she is watching. Ancient reruns of Let’s Make a Deal are just as mysterious as the episodes of Lucy.
I took a picture of her and her cocoa this morning. I want to be able to remember the times when she is comfortable and content. I want to have images of the moments that she finds some distraction and comfort. Even more than stealing her memories, the Alzheimer’s loots and pillages Mom’s fleeting moments of pleasure and peace. I want to be able to remember that her days were not all confusion and melancholy. There are moments that can make her smile.
Peace, rjb

I was sitting with family last night as they watched some tv. I am amazed at the number of different commercials for depression medications. As I listened to the “symptoms,” I could not help thinking that anyone of us might at anytime say; “that’s describing me.” There are days, sometimes a long sequence of them, that I don’t have any sensation of “well being.” But I don’t think I am necessarily supposed to have that sensation. This world is not a comfortable place. Yet the pharmaceutical commercials would make us believe it should be.

Jesus told his disciples: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (Joh 16:33) He clearly implied that there was an inward spiritual experience of peace that would be in tension with the external pressure and discomfort of life. We try to medicate the tribulation to obtain peace. Jesus said we already have peace, in Him.

So as I struggle with those days when Mom is most disoriented, I may be innundated by a great wave of ennui. When she looks at me with suspicion and distrust because she is not sure who I am, I may feel profoundly sad.  When I am scrubbing the rug after another “accident,” I might feel my circumstances are unfair.  But those are the sensations of the tribulation that is burnishing and polishing the outer man.

It is an act of faith that looks inward and encounters the living savior. Retreating into His shelter, that act of faith discovers and enjoys the peace that is “in Him.” Glaxo, Pfizer, or Lilly can never promise this kind of peace. His peace is a peace beyond comprehension, it is a peace that cannot be taken away.  So as we struggle with Mom’s failing memory and the erosion of her personality, I may feel listless and disinterested. I make have aches and pains. I may have an overwhelming sadness and sense of hopelessness. But none of that can touch the real me, none of that can take away that hidden inner peace. Because it is not mine to hold or to loose. It is His peace, and he has overcome the world of trouble.

Shalom for now and for tomorrow as well, rjb

I have a young friend Emily, her birthday is today. Her family and mine have celebrated our adjacent birthdays together for a long time. In addition to sharing closely conjoined birth dates, we share the experiences of living with a loved one with Alzheimer’s. Emily’s grandmother lived with her and her family until it became impossible.

We all went to a Mexican restaurant last night. We returned to our friends’ house for coffee. Many times in the past, we would have stayed and talked too long. I think that is a side effect of our busy age. We actually see our friends so seldom that we often overstay our welcome. But last night I looked at my watch. I did not need to say anything, it was understood. It was time to get home, and get mom settled for the night. They understood, no words needed.
I am grateful for friends that need no explanation. I am grateful, that we can still keep mom here and deal with the details of her condition at home. Yet it is hard to express these feelings. Not that I have difficulty saying “thank you.” No, I mean it is hard to identify, label, and verbalize all the dizzy, slippery feelings, that fabricate the texture of my life right now. It’s more than I can say. Oh well, enough rambling. Pax! rjb

Phronema – Blog

More than 2 Weeks
Hard to believe that it has been more than two weeks since I have had a chance and sit and reflect; since I’ve spent any time taking inventory, and since I have written anything here. The days have hurtled past in a dizzy blur of activity. I have been surrounded by the stuff of life, weddings, births, deaths, and disappointments. I wish I could say that in it all I have easily traced the benevolent hand of providence. Instead I have been driven back time and again to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament.
I have a saying that I use in class, the Hebrew wisdom tradition is all about living between what is and what ought to be. The language of God’s covenant with Israel clearly promised community blessing for national obedience. Yet on the personal level, the pious poor were left to wonder why the wicked prosper. (cf Psalm 73)
The wisdom literature was ‘all about’ exploring the why and how of living in a world that seldom lives up to our expectations. Qohelet ( Ecclesiastes) is by far one of my favorite books. Vanity of vanities, everything is pointless; everything leaves us gasping for breath… I am winded, I am weary, I ache inside and out. May our Father give us grace to believe and hold on when it feels like our hope is slipping through our fingers. In other words may his give us grace to be faithful, for His sake.
Shalom for now…
Added on May 21, 2009 by rjblackburn

Phronema – Blog

Life is too fast
I just cannot keep up with life. I feel like the guy who would spin dinner plates on sticks. He would get one spinning and then grab a plate and start number 2, he had to go back and spin the first one faster before he could go on to 3. It was a frantic juggling routine, I probably saw it on Ed Sullivan. But even then as a teen-ager I recognized it was an enduring metaphor for life.
I have just been too busy to blog, the things I would like to say, never seem as urgent as caring for my Mom or Wifey, or someone. We had dinner with a young friend tonight. Talking about vision and strategy and faith, always makes me somewhat melancholy. For some reason the words of Rudyard Kipling often haunt me:
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
I often wonder if I have chosen the right path, I wonder if I have made a difference anywhere that will really matter from the perspective of eternity. I can’t muster the endurance and focus that I know I ought to have. I feel so weak and ineffective in the long run. I can only hold on, and once and a while jot a few words down but I have little hope that it has any lasting value. So we keep spinning the plates, because we aren’t fast enough or clever enough to know how to stop them. As Qohelet would say: this too is fluff and gasping for breath. (sorry, my own translation)
Anyway, peace to you…
Added on June 03, 2009 by rjblackburn

Phronema – Blog

89 years…
Well, tomorrow Mom will be 89 years old. Her Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease. Lately Mom has started moaning a lot. I ask her what is wrong, and she says nothing. If I ask her why she is moaning, she says she didn’t moan. This moaning combined with her saying ow and ouch to everything that is even mildly uncomfortable, makes it so hard to assess how she really feels. She does not complain overtly about much, but I always sense that she does not feel well either.
Her memory has definitely deteriorated since her bronchitis. Some days she stands well to transfer from chair to bed or to commode. Other days I need to be stern to make her participate in anyway in her morning routine. And pills, oh my, the last days it has been nearly impossible to persuade her to swallow her medications.
Alan and Jean are coming tomorrow to celebrate her birthday. We will make a fuss, all the time knowing that Mom wont remember for more than a few minutes at anytime that it is her birthday. But maybe we do this as much for ourselves as for her.
As I was finishing up the messy part of our morning ritual today, Mom’s CD player was playing “no one ever cared for me like Jesus, no one else could take the sin and darkness from me, oh how much he cares for me…” I don’t know how much she understands any more, but I could not help thinking about Matthew 25:40; ” inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” In light of how much Jesus has done for us, most of which we wont understand until glory, there really is no service that I can render to Mom, or any other of His “needy brethren” that can be considered extreme or excessive.
I need His grace, His help, to really be a servant. To keep things in perspective, I need to keep my eye on glory.
Shalom, for today
rjb

Phronema – Blog

I Can’t Imagine
I really can’t imagine being 89. This spring season has been hard on Mom. She has lost a lot of ground to her Alzheimer’s. As I used the emory board this morning to deal with her finger nails, I thought of how many times she would sit watching TV with dad and grab an emory board and do that herself.
Her disease really leaves very little of her dignity intact. She needs help doing absolutely everything. My only consolation is that she does not recall any indignity almost as soon as it is passed.
I was thinking about Isa 43:25. “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.” God promises not to remember our sins. In 1 John 1:9, we read “When we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins.” As soon as we confess our sins, he forgives and he forgets. All of our transgressions are gone. Mom’s forgetting is a pathology, God’s forgetting is mercy. And it is grace, that the one reminds me of the other. Have a great day.
Shalom for now, rjb

Phronema – Blog

Remember Now Your Creator…
Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, Before the difficult days come, And the years draw near when you say, “I have no pleasure in them” (Ecc 12:1) Qohelet ends his treatise with an extended analogy of old age. But this first verse of the section is perhaps the most tragic part of it. The end of our life is pictured as years in which we find no pleasure. I think that is so sad.
Some days a simple bowl of Cheerios will make Mom smile broadly and exclaim “yummy, yummy…” There are other days that I can elicit no smile for anything. On the days when Mom’s affect is particularly flat, when she is disengaged and disinterested in everything, I begin to realize how insidious death really is. The closer we come to the tattered and frayed end of the tapestry of our lives, it seems that everything is dimmed by the “shadow of death.” The bright skeins of joy and pleasure are empty and discarded now, leaving the patterns more subdued and colorless.
Yet we plug along. Mom was having a particularly hard time following instructions this morning, I asked her what was wrong and she looked so distresses as she answered, “I don’t know…” Death is the last enemy to be destroyed, and we know that our Savior has overcome the power of the grave. But is is so hard to watch the shadow of that specter dim and distort the image of God in his creation as age and disability take their toll.
Here is a simple prayer for a day in which we find many occasions to delight in the Lord and in his good gifts. For you, for Mom, and myself. Gratia et Pax rjb

Well, I have finally been able to start a new blog, for Mom and her Alzheimer’s.  I sure hope that everyone who had encouraging things to say about the old RCN journal, will be able to join us here. More later, for Mom and myself, have a great night!  Oh, yeah, I turned 60 today. I am officially a fossil.

Shalom

rjb