Grandma's Joy Surprised And Blessed Me

 

 In 1977 I was married, working, and a college student when I got the call that my grandma was sick. My sister said it was congestive heart failure and not to worry. The next day, my sister called again to say that the doctor couldn’t drain my grandma’s lungs but not to worry. The next day, my sister called a third time and said, "Grandma has cancer." I hung up the phone, knowing that word filled my grandma with dread. I immediately made airline reservations, and the next day I flew to Southern California. A friend picked me up and took me to the hospital, where I met my aunt. My aunt was her usual stoic self, and I could see no visible emotion emanating from her. She simply told me that, as the eldest grandchild, I was in charge now. I stammered, “But, I'm only twenty-five years old! You’re her daughter, why aren't you making the decisions?” But my aunt turned and walked away.

Wow, what now? I went to grandma’s hospital room and found my sister and toddler nephew. Grandma was delighted to see me but knew, if I was there, something serious must be the matter. I deflected her questions and went into my granddaughter mode and made her laugh. When she fell asleep, I went shopping and bought her some cute nightgowns to wear, knowing she really couldn’t wear them because of all the tubes protruding from her. Nevertheless, when I returned to the hospital, grandma opened the gift bags and exclaimed with delight and laughter at the fancy nightgowns.

That night, after visiting hours, I stayed with my "mom", but the next day, I sadly had to leave her home and stay with my sister. The day was spent in the hospital with grandma. In the evening, the doctor finally arrived and asked to speak to me. He told me straight out that grandma had terminal cancer that had metastasized, and she probably had only six weeks to live. The doctor asked if I wanted him to tell my grandma the news or if I want to tell her. I figured that it was better coming from me, and he was pleased with that response.

My sister and her husband went to talk with the doctor when I entered grandma’s room, so grandma and I were alone. Grandma asked me what was wrong with her. I just could not tell her that she had cancer and was going to die, so I took a deep breath and asked, “Grandma, are you ready to meet Jesus?” I was surprised by her reaction. The smile on her face was like an angel’s. “Really? Yes, and I’ll get to see Ted again too! How soon? Now?” she asked eagerly. Ted was her beloved husband, my grandpa, who had died eighteen years before. “No, not now, grandma, but soon. I’ll be back to visit you over Easter break, but it won't be too long after that.” The only time I’ve ever seen an expression so gloriously joyful as my grandma’s at that moment is when a mother holds her newborn baby.

Then I asked my grandma if she wanted to pray, and she said yes, so we did. Then my sister, her husband, and toddler son came back into the room. We said our good-byes, kissed good-night, and said “I love you” to each other. Grandma continued to beam with an inner light. What a blessing to behold such pure joy.

It was about ten or so at night when we left the hospital. My sister, her family, and I went to a late dinner at a coffee shop. We talked awhile and then went home to bed. At three in the morning, we were awakened by the ringing phone. My grandma had died less than five hours after we left her room. It seems that grandma was just too impatient to wait six more weeks to be re-united with her beloved husband and to meet Jesus.

Now that I'm over sixty years old, I marvel even more at my grandma's reaction to her impending death. I don't think I'll be that joyful when my time comes because I will be SO sad to leave my children. I'm eager to see God and get some answers to my lifelong questions, but unlike my grandma, I think I'll put that day off as long as I can. 

Take care,

Kate

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"Don't Take It Personally"

 Psychologists and therapists encourage us to have open communication and let our needs be known. Over the years, this has not been easy for me to do, but as you might guess, I sometimes feel sad, lonely, and vulnerable after so many years of caregiving with no end in sight. Mostly, I write and read to keep these feelings at bay because I don't want to bore my friends. But sometimes I feel the need to connect with a friend. At these times, I tend to reach out to lifelong friends, to friends who knew me before marriage and family, to friends who are firmly woven into my life's tapestry. There's something about a forty to fifty year friendship, from adolescence to my sixties, that is like a "blankie." You've shared the friendship so long that its familiarity wraps you in comfort and love. All is understood. Until it isn't.  And, when it isn't, you want to know why because you want your friendship well and whole again, and you want to make it all better if somehow you upset your friend.

So, you ask your friend if something is wrong, and the reply is, "Don't take it personally." Well, how else are you supposed to take it when you haven't been given any other explanations? You are left to fill in the blanks yourself. How would your friend take it if the situation were reversed, and you were saying those words?

I'm fairly certain that my feelings of insecurity when I hear those words stem from my father's mantra, "No one is ever going to like you or love you. No one is ever going to care about anything you ever say. No one." My dad took delight in saying these words to me almost daily during high school. And now, more than forty years later, those words patiently wait and are ready to pounce when I'm feeling vulnerable. Perhaps if my husband hadn't gotten dementia, or if my middle son hadn't gotten schizophrenia, perhaps our family's love and affection would have buried my father's cruel words forever. But dementia and schizophrenia did enter our family, and the resulting loss, insecurity, and near hopelessness at those twin situations have only reinforced my father's words, even though intellectually I know that they shouldn't. 

So, like it or not, what I hear when someone says, "Don't take it personally," is that my needs, concerns, and feelings are subordinate, which I can accept if I only knew why. But when I don't know why, my insecurities rise up and overwhelm me. Therefore, I do not use the words, "Don't take it personally" because I don't want my friends to ever feel insecure in my affections for them. I take the time to explain what is going on so that there won't be any hurt feelings or misunderstandings because my friends' feelings are just as important as my feelings.

If you, like me, do not like hearing, "Don't take it personally," then tell your friend what is really troubling you. It may take a few extra minutes, but it is well worth the time because your shared affection and connection will not only remain intact, but will also grow stronger through understanding.

Take care,

Kate

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What Is It About Bruce Springsteen?

Like many of my peers, I bought the record album (yes, vinyl) Born To Run in 1975, and I read the articles in Time and Newsweek that said Bruce Springsteen was, possibly, the new Bob Dylan. I loved the record and played it over and over. It was the first rock album that I loved. Sure, I enjoyed other rock albums, the Moody Blues and Fleetwood Mac come to mind, but Bruce's music I loved, and even then, in 1975, I knew that Bruce was much better than Bob Dylan.

In 1984, when Amy was not yet one year old, I introduced her to "the Boss" by playing for her Bruce's new album Born in the U.S.A.. Amy and I would dance to the music. It was so much fun, and she loved Bruce's songs. It was much better music than Raffi or Sesame Street. Don't get me wrong, I like children's music well enough, but Bruce has a magic, wonder, and power that leaves everyone else in the dust.

During the next twenty years of raising my four children, I had little time to follow music. I would buy Bruce's new albums, tapes, and cd's, but I rarely got to listen to them more than once or twice. My dream was to go to a concert one day.

Then, in 2007, I went to my first Bruce concert. Bruce was excellent, but the acoustics were awful at the venue, and our seats were in a blind spot, so my youngest son, Grant, and I roamed around the arena throughout the concert trying to get a view of Bruce or at least the screens. We had read about Bruce's concerts going late and being full of Bruce's spontaneity, but this concert ended respectably just after ten. So, our first Bruce concert was a qualified positive.

Six months later in 2008, on the same Magic tour, Grant and I got to see Bruce at the HP Pavilion, and the show was amazing. It still ended at a respectable time, but it had lots more energy and spontaneity; plus, the acoustics are excellent at the Pavilion, so the music quality was much better than our first concert.

And now we come to last night's concert, again at the HP Pavilion, again Grant accompanied me. Last night was pure magic! It's like that moment when you fall in love with someone--perfect. And love is what I think makes Bruce's concerts so alive and so memorable. Bruce loves us, his fans, and we love him. He gets energy from us, and we get energy from him. And then there's the music--Bruce loves music, every type of music, pure and simple, with an all-consuming passion, and he shares his passion and his love unconditionally. Bruce holds nothing back, and we, his fans, do not hold back either. And in that concert where everything comes together and clicks, as it did last night, Bruce and his fans enter into a state of pure sustained joy. The world slips away, and we are transported to a rapturous place of total bliss. When the concert ended after 11:30 PM, everyone was happy and "stimulated" like Bruce wanted, but we wished it could have gone on another hour or two, and Bruce looked like he wished it could have gone on longer too. Last night's concert was a perfect evening that could not have been better.

Grant and I are looking forward to Bruce's next concert, whenever it may be, and I encourage all of you to see Bruce if you can. Being at one of his concerts is possibly the closest we can get to heaven on this earth!

Take care,

Kate

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A Wistful Celebration

When my book, Dueling With Dementia, was published on Wednesday, I felt happy, nervous, excited, vulnerable. This is my first book, and I wanted to celebrate. Alas, each of my children was busy with work, school, or a girlfriend. Mollie, my dog, was happy, but she's always happy. I showed her the book, but she was not impressed. I sent out an email to my friends and received many positive comments in response,  but what I wanted to do was CELEBRATE with someone who cares about me.

Of course, the obvious choice should have been my husband, but he's the subject of my book, and he's no longer able to appreciate my accomplishment because of his dementia. All of a sudden, in the midst of feeling a bit sorry for myself being all alone on publication day, I remembered one of Gordon's first gifts to me. Gordon's preference for gifts was jewelry, though I'm not much of a jewelry person. However, for Christmas 1982, Gordon gave me an IBM Selectric II typewriter so that I could more easily write my plays and stories. While I loved the typewriter, the more important gift was Gordon's belief in me and my writing. 

Sadly, my beloved typewriter was destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. My bricks and board bookcases collapsed on it, crushing it. Out of sentimentality, I kept the twisted machine for years because of what it represented--Gordon's belief in me.

With four young children, I had no time to write, but the idea that one day I would write was always in the back of my mind. I would have to get another typewriter, but that could wait, I thought, until the children were much older.

But Gordon had another idea. On Mother's Day 1993, Gordon bought me my first Apple computer based on the recommendation of our friend, Rob, who worked for Apple. Gordon said that he knew I had no time for writing then, and that the computer would most probably be used for children's school software, but he wanted me to have it in case I found time to write because he was looking forward to seeing my work published, having spent years listening to me read to him the scenes from plays, short stories, and essays that I wrote. Again, while I loved my Apple computer, the greatest treasure was Gordon's belief in me, and I cried tears of joy.

While the gifts of the typewriter and computer were long ago, the memories of those two gifts and Gordon's belief in me are still in my head and heart. 

So, to celebrate my book being published, I took out those two memories from my treasure chest of memories and polished them, while I baked a batch of celebratory cookies and toasted my book with a glass of chilled white wine. A wistful celebration to be sure, but a fitting one too.

Take care,

Kate

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Two Can Be The Loneliest Number

Today I've been musing on the difference between solitude and loneliness. I believe solitude is a positive experience. I have always loved being by myself. I never get lonely or bored. I enjoy my own company. For me, time alone is a time for growth and reflection; my thoughts are free to roam hither and yon with no one putting a kibosh on them. Solitude promotes feelings of joy and serenity. However, because I am a sharer, I do not want to be alone too long or too often, or my brain will explode with all the thoughts I want to share and get some feedback on, but some alone time definitely uplifts my spirits.

Loneliness, on the other hand, crushes my spirit. Loneliness is the flip side of solitude. It is a painful aloneness. I've found that the loneliest place can be, paradoxically, when I am with someone. 

And I think that I've finally figured out why. Our family's current situation results in me spending much too much time at home alone with my husband who has dementia. Dementia destroys the possibility of meaningful interaction; there can be no sharing, no connection, no shared laughter. Yet, because my husband sits in a chair in the living room or at the dinner table, there is the presumption that the possibility of meaningful interaction can occur. So, night after night, I feel a desperate, despairing loneliness when I want to share a thought, or a comment about our children, or a laugh at something on TV, but I can't share because my husband sits in his own world, uninterested in and often oblivious to my world. When it is just the two of us, our house is no longer a home. It is a lonely, empty, hollow shell.

I often feel like running from the house like Edvard Munch's screamer, channeling Conrad's Kurtz's "the horror, the horror." But I don't. Instead, I try valiantly to find slivers of solitude in the unbearable loneliness, slivers that will keep me going until one of my children or friends walks through my door, and all my thoughts, ideas, and feelings that I've been storing up can pour forth and be shared. In that moment of sharing, loneliness is vanquished, and our house once again becomes a home that is full of love and laughter and connection.

Take care,

Kate

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