What feels like the beginning of the end…

So, if this comes off as whiney & “oh, poor me” I apologize in advance. My blog is a place that I go to for working things out in my head, and this is one that I need help with. Bloggy help. Open-up-the-burdens-of-your-heart help. So, read on if you want some major whining. I guess sometimes we have to have a pity party before we pick up and move on with the changes in our lives. Ok, now I've warned you…

I’ve talked a little about my Dad on this blog. In October of 2005, we found out he had alzheimers. Things hadn’t been right with him for about a year. Even when Ben was born the previous February, my dad wasn’t himself. He complained that his memory wasn’t good. He had a haunted look in his eyes the night he met Ben. Something was wrong, but I hoped against hope it was depression or something less…I don’t know. Less permanent. Less like looking down a long dark tunnel to a depressing end.

Flash forward through time with me. June 2006: I visit my dad and take him on a trip to the bookstore. I read him a bit of one of my favorite books; he asks me to buy it for him, and I do, knowing he probably can’t read it anymore. December 2006: dad complains that the newspaper he’s reading doesn’t make any sense. July 2007: my mom finally sells his car, because he hasn’t been able to drive for months. February 2008: Dad comes to Ben’s birthday party at my house. He can say hi to those who speak to him first, and, in a suprising moment of clarity, tells me he likes it when he comes to my house (but he calls it “Becky’s house.”) May 2008, mother’s day: a silent dad eats what is put in front of him, stands where his daughters tell him to stand while they take pictures. Even simple words like “Hi” and “bye” and “I love you” are spoken in a halting voice, the concentration that it takes to even say these words almost tangible.

June 1, 2008. It’s two weeks away. It’s 6 days away from his birthday. It’s also the day that he will no longer live at home anymore. It’s the day when his clothes and few possessions will be transferred to a nursing facility, the same nursing facility I remember visiting my Grandpa in 6 months before he died. That will be my dad’s new home.

I know it’s a necessary step. I don’t fault my mom for making this decision; she has done as much as she can to keep him home, and I know that this is hard for her as well. But when I found out last night that the timeline of my dad’s “home” vs “nursing facility” would be two weeks, TWO WEEKS, it hit me hard. I’m more mad at circumstances and stupid diseases that take away our loved ones. I hate it that I can look at a man that looks like my dad, but is really a stranger inhabiting his body. I hate it that he can’t do any of the things he loves anymore, like reading and mowing the lawn and telling old random stories from 30 years ago and laughing over stupid jokes and. And. And.

I just miss my dad. And I wish he didn’t have to go through this trial, and I wish I didn’t have to watch him go through this trial. I hate that he’s right there in front of my face, but miles away, in his mind, trying or not trying to puzzle it all out.

Two weeks. Alzheimers REALLY sucks.

Identity

Wow, two posts in one day. But I was reading some older blogs, and I noticed that one of the things that I often end up writing about is that tension between past and present, the balancing of who I was against who I am now. It reminded me of a quote that illustrates this idea so perfectly. It is out of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose. This is one of those books like East of Eden or the Lord of the Rings trilogy which talk about the human condition as much as they tell a story. With no more ado, here is the passage.

"Familiar and unfamiliar swam and blended into a strangeness like dreaming as she saw Howie Drew’s face out of her girlhood against the mountainside of her present life. A wash of confused feeling went over her like wind across a sweating skin, for the identity that Howie took for granted and talked to and reflected back at her was not the identity it used to be, not the one that had signed all her past drawings, not the one she knew herself. Then what was it now? She didn’t know." (my italics).

I love this. It helps me to realize that I'm not the same person to my friends as I am to my husband or mom or children or boss or coworker. And that this is something that we all struggle with as we figure out who we are.

I love books that can do this. Thanks, Wallace, for putting this into words so beautifully.

Hair, part deux

Okay, I decided I'd post a picture of my bangs. They don't always make me happy, but I'm stuck with them til...til I figure out if I'll keep them.

One tidbit: at church a few weeks ago, a very kind friend noticed them & asked me about them. I explained how I don't know quite what to do with them to make them look good. She is a really great hairstylist, and she offered to help me with them. But I loved the look she had on her face when I told her I'd cut them myself. A little bit of horror, a little bit of pity all mixed into one. She'd probably die if I told her most of the time, my hair is cut by my husband. He can do a straight line, which is really all I require. Maybe in another lifetime I'll be more posh. But it works for me!

But, as I accepted the offer for help, I wondered if it was because they looked awful, or if she was just trying to help me feel more confident with them. She's so nice that I like to think it's the confidence factor. What can you do?

So here are a few pics. It makes me feel self-conscious to post them, but oh well.

I'm all squinty. But you get the idea.

With my dad on Mother's Day. I miss the man that he used to be. Alzheimers sucks.

Adventures in crossing the street

Picture this:

It’s 8am. The transit system train has just expelled its riders, who swarm out of its depths on their way to work. Innocently, a crosswalk waits 15 feet from the front of the train podium, and a half a block of train track looms ahead of that. Vacant of riders, the train glides toward the next intersection and gets stopped by the light. Back at the crosswalk which the train now firmly blocks, are a hundred people, all patiently waiting for the train to move so that they can cross the street in the legal way. They wait and wait while the time ekes away second by second. The train moves; there are mere seconds left to cross the street before their time is gone. They begin their race.

Now, go back to the people who have clustered just below the front of the train podium, who wait for the train to inch past them before they boldly step behind the train, over the tracks, and down the middle of the driving lane. These jaywalkers, as they are called in official cities, are involved in same race.

The goal for each set of racers: the sidewalk-turned-corral that lurks just ahead. Once upon a time, this corral was a wide city sidewalk with more than enough room for busy pedestrians hurrying to work. Now, due to major demolition of the buildings that used to occupy this city block, the once-wide sidewalk is a covered walkway spanning half a city block through which both sets of racers must travel if they are to begin their work day.

Now, why are the people racing you may wonder? It is because the confluence of these two streams of people as they meet in the corral causes a massive traffic jam, the likes of which causes fast walkers like myself to lose precious minutes of time.

Losing time is unacceptable in my book. I would LIKE to be on of those who uses the crosswalk, but I can’t stand being caught behind the train, or even the mass of people who are at the front of the crosswalk. Therefore I HAVE to be one of the jaywalkers. But even this doesn’t assure me the all-clear as I enter the covered sidewalk, because the train sometimes moves before I reach it, and so the first crosswalkers have the opportunity to beat me to my goal.

Granted, this is a small thing. But the days that the train gets stuck at the light and I reach the crosswalk with the handful of other jaywalkers before the crosswalkers can move, I rejoice. “Yes! I made it! Look at those poor saps stuck behind the train. Good luck to YOU getting to work, heh heh heh.” And I know that the other quick-walking, time-crunching jaywalkers are just as thrilled that we were the winners this day.

The days that we aren’t as successful, the ones when the train moves while we are still 10 feet from the corral entrance, there is a visible speed surge in us. We know that the crosswalkers will swarm towards our shared goal and, to be honest, jaywalkers just hate to lose. Come on, the POINT of jaywalking is to get to the other side in record time, right? On those days when we lose, when we are forced to jostle our way through the walkway, looking for holes in the pack that can be darted into, we are defeated. I am defeated. I have to live with the shame that I broke a city ordinance which did me absolutely no good. I still got stuck darting in and out of people.

But I wonder: do those crosswalkers feel the same rejoicing when they beat me to our shared goal as I do when I beat them? And I laugh at human nature. What do a few seconds really matter in the grand scheme of things? Why do we have to turn everything into a competition?

So are their quirks of human nature that have made you laugh today? Or even ones that just drive you crazy that you want to share?

I am sick of looking at my last post, and probably you are too. But I don't have time or the brains to say something profound or clever or interesting. But here is a post anyway.

I am glad Mother's Day is over. I think that it is really Guilt Day. But my husband made it a great day for me, and I attended two family parties for both the moms in my life, and both parties were a success. I hope that my mom and mom-in-law know that I love them and am glad they are in my life.

I hope all of you had a great Mother's day as well. Now if only the weather would start acting like May and not March, we might be getting somewhere.

I told you it wouldn't be profound....