A Walk in the Park -- flash fiction

"Ach, du meine liebe Gute! Your costume!"

My costume? I was wearing cargo pants, a plaid, flannel shirt, and sneakers. She, on the other hand, was wearing some sort of long black corseted dress, a top hat with lace, and high button-up boots.

"And your hair. So short." Her accent was British, though not exactly like my friend Ivor's. "And you're so tall."

How should I respond to that? Yes, I am tall and you are short. I don't think so. My Momma taught me better manners than that.

"Yes, ma'am. Isn't this a nice place to walk?"

She dropped her scrutiny of me and gazed at the river.

"The River Dee. It is beautiful. I used to ride here. My husband and I. He bought this land for us many years ago." She was distracted by a squirrel racing from one tree to another on the river's edge. "Here all seems to breathe peace, and make one forget the world and its turmoils."

Although the sky was overcast, the air was clear and we could see snow laced mountains in the distance. A view very familiar to me. But something about the squirrel was decidedly foreign -- its tufted ears.

"So, this is your place?"

"My place, indeed. All this land is my land. This is my country." She studied me closely. "Do you not know where you are?"

For a moment I felt dizzy, as though I had missed a step.

In that same moment she grabbed my arm to steady herself.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I'm not quite sure." She continued to hold my arm. "Are you all right?"

"I don't mean to frighten you, ma'am, but I'm not sure I am. I honestly don't know where I am or how I got here."

No taller than my own grandmother, a bit heavier maybe, she took command seating me on an outcropping of rock.

"I, too, feel a bit dazed," she confessed. "To see someone so odd as you. Someone so oddly dressed."

She stood in front of me eyeing me from head to foot. "Are you a Campbell?"

"Like the soup?" I ventured.

From her quizzical expression my mentioning soup was just as odd to her as everything else about me.

She touched my shirt and explained "The Campbell tartan."

"No, ma'am. I don't really know anything about tartans."

She settled beside me seemingly satisfied not to know who I was or why I was there.

"Alas," she considered the scene before us. "Sometimes I fear I'm going insane."

"Insane?"

"Meeting someone like you," she explained.

"Like me?"

"My grandfather, you know -- George the Third. He was quite mad."

"I'm sorry." What else was there to say? I was disoriented.

"I don't remember him," she continued. "I was quite young when he died. But there were always stories."

Maybe I was losing it, too. I was quickly approaching the age when my own mother's dementia had started and my grandmother's the generation before.

Lawrence Alvin Weber 05/30/1925 - 10/03/2016

Picture taken February 8, 1944

Lawrence Alvin Weber died in his sleep October 3, 2016 in Aurora, Colorado. He was 91 years old and a long way from home. But he didn’t know it.

 He was born May 30, 1925 in Luther, Oklahoma to Lawrence Leland and Emma Mae Jarvis Weber. He was the second of four children, the only son in this farming family, surrounded by a thriving rural community of 613 according to the 1930 census. And of those, a good many were members of his extended family.

So much of his life’s focus must have come from his beginnings. He was a child during the Great Depression and Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl years. Being a child and busy with school and sports and his family and friends these hard times probably weren’t as much a concern for him as they were for the adults. Because his family farmed, they had food to eat. As long as the weather cooperated and their crops came in. But the national sense of unease, of not knowing where the next meal was coming from, must have filtered down to the children.

He would always be concerned about people having enough to eat. All his life, even when he lived in town, he grew a big garden and produced enough food to can or fill his own freezer and the extra he gave away. You couldn’t visit Momma and Daddy in the summertime without going home with fresh vegetables. After he retired, he volunteered at the Edmond Hope Center where he worked in the Food Room.

On the heels of The Depression and the Dust Bowl came World War II. In October 1943, his senior year in high school, he enlisted in the Navy. The Seabees, the Construction Battalions.

I asked him why the Navy. I knew he couldn’t swim. In fact he never was comfortable swimming even after he learned. He said it was because they were required to provide better food than any of the other services. Plus he liked heavy equipment and they would teach him to use it.

The Navy took him out of the small rural town where he knew everyone and sent him off to Rhode Island where he knew no one. In those days joining the Navy was “for the duration.” And nobody knew how long that duration would last or what the world would look like when the duration was over. The Allies were not necessarily odds-on favorites in the war against Hitler’s Germany. And the survival of any individual member of the armed services was far from guaranteed.

From Rhode Island, which must have felt very foreign compared to Oklahoma, Daddy was sent across the country by train to California.

That was the first time he’d been to Colorado. The trains were still steam locomotives. And they were routed north from Denver into Wyoming then west through the South Pass because the Rockies were too high in Colorado for the trains to pull.

From California, he was shipped out to the Solomon Islands. On April 1st 1945, the 82-day battle for the control of Okinawa started. Daddy was there. In all, the 10th Army had 182,821 men under its command including over 88,000 Marines and 18,000 Navy personnel (mostly Seabees and medical personnel.) Nearly 250,000 people died during that battle. 14,009 American soldiers. More than 149,000 of the island's 300,000 civilians, and more than 77,000 Japanese Soldiers.

His 20th birthday fell two-thirds of the way through that battle, in the midst of such death and destruction.

The only thing, really, that he ever talked about Okinawa was when they were hit by a cyclone. That must have been the one thing like home to a young man from Oklahoma.

When I wanted us to go to Mexico one vacation when we were on the South Texas gulf coast, Daddy said he'd promised himself when he was in the Navy that if he ever got back to the United States, he was never leaving it again. And he didn't.

It’s always frustrated me that he never seemed to feel that the apocalypse was at hand, like I did. Not during the Cold War when the magazines were filled with bomb shelter blue prints and the nation was stock piling water and dried food in public bomb shelters. Not during the most violent days of the Civil Rights Movement when American cities were burning. Not during the war and anti-war days of Vietnam.

I didn’t know that maybe it was because he lived most of his childhood in a world on the verge of disaster. And came of age in the midst of incomprehensible death and destruction.

I don’t think he’d have been too worried about this year’s election cycle even if he’d have understood what was happening.

I did appreciate that when we would move to a new house, if it didn’t have a storm shelter, he had one built and always one that was big enough to accommodate our family and any in the neighborhood who needed a safe place to come.

He grew food and provided safe shelter.

I think the thing I most admire about my Daddy was the way he took care of my mother. During her last years she developed dementia. To the point that toward the end she didn’t know any of us – even Daddy. She’d see him coming up from the barn and she’d ask “Who is that man?” But when he spoke she knew him. She always recognized his voice.

My Daddy concentrated on what needed to be done and did what he could. With grace and good humor.

He enjoyed babies – any kind of babies – calves, puppies, chickens, goats, grandkids and great-grands.

He liked to play. Cards with Momma and friends – the women against the men. Work-up softball in the yard after work with my brother and me and all the kids in the neighborhood. Or a pick-up basketball game at family get-togethers. He put up a basket down by the barn after he retired to his acreage in Logan County. That was so Momma and the grandkids could play HORSE.

And he cooked. And he ate. He was the best person to cook for because he liked everything. And he always appreciated good food.

When my brother and I were growing up, Daddy’d take us either to the Texas Gulf Coast or Colorado for formal vacation. When we moved to Colorado after Mother died Daddy would always comment that he never thought he’d ever live somewhere as beautiful as Colorado.

Oklahoma was always “home,” but his home in Colorado always looked “just like a picture.” And he felt at home there.

Picture taken December 2013

July 23, 2016 -- Nonfiction

This was my father on July 20, 2016. It was taken his first morning at New Dawn Memory Care. He had had a good night and looked better than I'd seen him in some time. And he was lucid. We had a conversation.

Daddy has dementia. I don't know if it's vascular dementia or Alzheimer's. It doesn't matter. Both lead to death by a circuitous and often torturous road.

He had been living in a residential care home, but he had started exhibiting aggressive behaviors -- pushing, lashing out physically -- and they asked us to move him because they were not set up to take care of patients like him. 

My father had never been aggressive in his life, as far as I knew. He didn't drink. I'd never heard him use profanity. The most violent thing I'd ever seen him do was many years ago when I was in high school.

My mother, brother, and I were at the breakfast table with Daddy. And Daddy lost his temper with Momma. Now, you've got to understand that my mother who was an interesting, brilliant, and passionate woman could be the most frustrating person on the planet. But Daddy just never seemed to get mad at her. That morning we were having pancakes and there was a stick of butter still in its wrapper sitting on the table. He got so angry he snatched up that stick of butter and hurled it to the floor right next to his chair. 

I don't remember what Momma was going on about, but I can guarantee you that we all hushed up.

Daddy still doesn't use profanity, but, and I've never witnessed it myself, his care givers have said he's pushed them, struck out at them, and held them by their wrists and wouldn't let go. These are caring women, but they are small. Daddy, though not large compared to most of my family, is about 5'9" 152 pounds and physically quite strong.

He has minor to moderate hearing loss compounded by the dementia. Because he is slow to comprehend speech and then formulate the appropriate response, people think he doesn't hear them. They talk louder, literally raising their voice. When we lose our hearing, it often presents in the loss of the higher tones. So he hears less that is recognizable and feels that he is being shouted at which leads to agitation. 

The caregivers were not native English speakers and had strong accents. One of the symptoms of his dementia involved frightening hallucinations so you add to that being spoken to in an English he didn't understand and I think he felt threatened and was trying to protect himself.

He was wheelchair-bound so it was pretty easy for them to keep him corralled, but finding a regular nursing home that would accept him was impossible because of the aggressive behavior. I thought if we could just get his medications adjusted, his agitation and aggression could be controlled.  The homes I talked to were not prepared to take on that responsibility. And I understand that. 

I want Daddy to be safe and comfortable. I also want the people who care for him to be safe.

One of the nursing homes I talked to called me back and suggested that Daddy go to a memory care facility long enough to get his meds adjusted and then he could move into a nursing home.

Memory care facilities are very expensive and the ones I had talked to do not take Medicare/Medicaid. Daddy's current financial situation will pay for his care for a while, but it can take a long time for a person with dementia to die. It certainly is not beyond imagining that he will outlive his money. So I've got to make his money go as far as it will and then we will have to tap into whatever benefits we can. Including Medicare/Medicaid.

With dementia there are good days and bad days. Often there are good moments and bad moments. That first night at New Dawn was a good one. That next day when this picture was taken was a good one.

His second day there I resumed my preferred manner of life -- a walk, then my Silver Sneakers exercise class. I had been spending time each morning with Daddy because he was calm while I was there. We had a private care giver come in every afternoon except holidays when the cost doubled. I covered those afternoons. 

It hadn't been bad. Much of the time we talked about old times, went for walks when it wasn't too hot, played catch with a big ball, or just sat quietly waiting for lunch.

That second day while I was walking and exercising, Daddy fell twice. The first time was at breakfast. He dropped his spoon on the floor and was leaning over to pick it up. They called while I was walking, but assured me he was fine.

Before I arrived for my afternoon visit, he had fallen out of his chair again. They didn't know exactly how it happened, but I knew from experience that Daddy often thinks he sees things on the floor and will try to pick them up. The second fall had caused injuries to his right shoulder and ribs. 

When I got there he was in a big easy chair listing far to his right, propped on a pillow, and extremely confused. Any movement caused him a great deal of pain. I had to decide. To transport to a hospital or not to transport.

They could and would do x-rays there at New Dawn. So we could determine if anything was broken without transporting. They could and would get pain meds prescribed by their physician. Okay.

But to determine whether or not he'd had a stroke would require a CT scan at a hospital.

I tried to get Daddy to smile. One of the symptoms of stroke is drooping on one side of the face, easily noticeable when a patient smiles. There was maybe a little drooping. One eye seemed slightly more dilated than the other, but when the nurse used a pen light, both eyes reacted appropriately.

Then the question was, if he had had a stroke how would he be treated differently at a hospital than where he was. At New Dawn they have a registered nurse 24 hours a day. They have a doctor on call 24 hours a day. And we had long ago, along with a capable Daddy, decided we would take no heroic, life-saving actions. 

So we decided not to transport, and I fed him his supper in the chair where he sat listing to his right.

The nurse asked me to consider applying for hospice care. For some families that's a frightening suggestion, but not for me. We had had hospice with my mother during her last days. And one of the ladies at the residential care facility had just graduated from hospice. That means she had stabilized and was not likely to die in the near future. So I did not take the nurse's suggestion as an indicator that she was announcing a death sentence for Daddy.

My only experience with hospice had been a good one. My sister-in-law is a hospice nurse. I have never heard of a bad hospice. The next morning I met with a Compassus intake worker. She examined Daddy and his records and signed us up. They will provide the supplies and equipment he will need. They will help us find a nursing home when he's ready for the move. And they will follow him. They will be a second set of eyes and minds working with whatever facility he's in. They will give me the information I will need to make whatever decisions I will need to make. I can't tell you what a weight that has taken off my shoulders.

So come the next morning I walked with my walking group at Main Reservoir. I was not worried about Daddy and it was a beautiful day. There was a white pelican on the water. And cormorants, and duck families. People were fishing or just sharing the shade. We met or were passed by other walkers, each as friendly as the ones before and after.

A small backwater on the north side of the lake.

See the line of algae across the middle of the picture?

It looks as though it's floating in the air.

Some of us walked to the Starbucks by the lake for coffee and whatever. I know. I know. Walking like this will do nothing good for your waistline, but the companionship will sooth the soul.

After lunch, the hospice nurse called to tell me that Daddy was doing less well. She had increased his pain medication and changed his diet to pureed food and thickened liquids. Choking is a real risk for patients who can't sit upright to eat and drink. Not so much because they'll choke to the point of not being able to breathe, but aspiration of anything into the lungs can cause pneumonia which would be one more danger and discomfort for Daddy.

I shouldn't have been surprised to see what condition Daddy was in, but I was. He's now pretty much bedridden. He didn't know me.

I live in metropolitan Denver. We are in the High Plains Desert which means we usually measure rainfall in tenths or even hundredths of inches and we are glad to get whatever we can. The sun here is fierce so clouds are a joy both for the immediate relief of summer heat and the promise of precipitation to come. 

 This is what I saw on my way home.

In the distance are the Foothills of the
Front Range Mountains. The light here
is ever a wonder. If you look closely
you can see shafts of sunlight alternating with
the dark of what could be either rain or virga.

And closer to home

That bald rounded hill in the distance is my Green Mountain. Because it doesn't have trees to speak of and rises almost alone from the prairie I can recognize it from anywhere in the Denver area and I know home is that way. A good anchor in the world when you don't know if tomorrow will be a good day or a bad one.

The Lady in the Van -- Movie Review

image from en.wikipedia.org

A friend kindly loaned me The Lady in the Van on DVD. It's been years since I've watched anything but Downton Abbey on DVD. Did you know they include umpteen trailers for other movies that are apparently available on DVD. My husband pointed out that at least there were no ads for popcorn and Coke and no advisories to silence our cell phones.

And the way they choose which movie trailers to include completely escapes me. At least at the movie theater the attendant trailers are usually rated the same as the movie you went to see. You know, R-rated thrillers if you're there to see an R-rated thriller.

This movie is rated PG. All of the other trailers but one were rated R. Guess there just aren't many PG-rated films that the powers-that-be think will be of interest to adults. Or adults of a certain age. True. Maggie Smith movies tend to attract older people, of whom I'm one.

So now, I suppose I've put you younger people off. And movie reviews are supposed to encourage people to watch the film, if the reviewer liked it. Which I did. Very much.

And no, I can't in good conscience recommend it to you young people. Especially if you have close family members aged sixty and up. Or unusual characters who wander through your neighborhood. It will only frighten you.

It is, however, a wonderful movie that will make you laugh, discomfit you, and bring a tear or two to your eyes.

The Lady in the Van is "a mostly true story" by playwright Alan Bennett about himself and the odd homeless woman whom he allowed to live in her van in his driveway temporarily. Temporarily for the rest of her life.

Alex Jennings plays Bennett, a self-absorbed writer. So self-absorbed, in fact, that he is two characters -- one who writes, and one who lives. Jennings plays both parts. And they talk to each other. After all, Bennett the writer explains "writing is talking to one's self."

Maggie Smith stars as Miss Shepherd, The Lady. She is a mystery unfolding gradually as the movie goes along.

Miss Shepherd is unwashed and ungrateful. Gifts she accepts or rejects with equal disdain. She parks her van in front of this house and that in a not quite tony neighborhood in London. The neighbors don't want her there, but none is willing to be thought cruel enough to actually get rid of her. Certainly not our playwright.

Her logic? Well, it's unquestionable, albeit a bit specious. When neighbors tell her she can't park her van in front of their home she responds most reasonably with "I've had guidance.... The Virgin Mary. I spoke to her yesterday. She was outside the Post Office in Park Way."

The Lady is not attractive. She is not charming. She is outrageous. She's an embarrassment and a bother. And, yet, somehow, she's completely vulnerable. You want her to be safe. Maybe even happy.

So much about her character reminds me of people I have known.

Miss Shepherd gets Bennett to do things for her that he had no intention of doing including pushing her to the top of the street where she turned and free-wheeled back down with such joy and abandon it's infectious. You smile, perhaps laugh out loud.

photo from npr.org

(I used to work with a man in a wheel chair. He was NOT difficult in the least. He and his daughters would go to the zoo armed with lettuce. The elephant enclosure had a sidewalk running downhill outside its west fence. He would begin at the bottom of the hill where he would toss lettuce into the pen and the elephants would gobble it up. Then his girls would push him to the top of the side walk with the elephants following every step (roll?) of the way. He would turn and free-wheel down with the elephants in hot pursuit. He'd throw more lettuce into the elephants' pen and do it all over again.)

In the movie, a neighbor suggests that Miss Shepherd would be a "good subject" for Mr. Bennett.

"For what?" he asks.

"For one of your little plays."

Writer-Bennett argues with liver-Bennett. "One old lady is enough," he says meaning his mother who has Alzheimer's whom he features in his plays.

Here he is, caught between his mother's dementia and the demented lady living in his driveway.

His mother is put in a care home and The Lady gets a social worker. Two actually.

The first one is as ineffectual as the rest of the neighborhood. The second one is the proverbial do-gooder who will do good according to her own lights without regard to what their who-good's-done-to wants done good.

I used to work for the Welfare Department and believe me, I've known both kinds. Truth be told, I've been both kinds myself.

One of my favorite scenes is Mr. Bennett watching the ambulance driver who comes to take The Lady to something called a Day Center where she will be bathed and given clean clothes. The playwright watches this man treat The Lady with great respect, even putting his arm around her to help her into her wheelchair. Despite her stench.

(I understand. I once was charged with helping remove three neglected children from their filthy home. The youngest was five and hadn't had a bath in I don't know how long. She smelled so bad that when she held her arms up for me to take her it was all I could do to keep from stepping back -- a beautiful little girl who was in no way responsible for her condition. She didn't understand what was going on. She just wanted to be held.)

The very next scene is The Lady in her wheelchair on a lift rising into the ambulance -- like a queen.

Then when she returns to her van, Miss Shepherd asks "Mr. Bennett, hold my hand? It's clean."

Ah yes. Not a seven-hankie film. But Dame Maggie Smith makes it a good strong three-hankie film.

In the end there is a blue plaque with Miss Shepherd's name and the years she lived in the van parked in Mr. Bennett's drive. Thinking I would use a shot of that blue plaque, I discovered the Blue Plaque is apparently a 'thing' in London. There's a list in Wikipedia of blue plaques saying who lived in what house when -- Sylvia Plath, Sir Winston Churchill, Jimi Hendrix, etc.

It may be "a mostly true story," but The Lady's Blue Plaque is apparently artistic license. It's not on the Wikipedia list.

Shakespeare, Downton Abbey, and Banana Bread

image from Vic Trevino on Pinterest

                                                    "All the world's a stage,

                                                    And all the men and women merely players"

                                                    "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
                                                    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
                                                    And then is heard no more"

The first quote is from Shakespeare's As You Like It, classified by scholars as a Comedy. The second is from MacBeth, classified as a Tragedy. The difference my friends is that a comedy ends happily for its main characters. In Shakespeare's tragedies, they usually end up dead.

As a writer, I have a tendency to see my life as stories. Not perhaps the most pragmatic way to live, maybe not even the sanest way to live. But I'm still here.

These past few weeks have been difficult. My 90-year-old father's mind is failing. That's not unusual, unfortunately. Since I am, for all intents and purposes, responsible for his care, I've been trying to find an appropriate place for him to live.

Until last September, with a bit of help from home care givers, Daddy lived with my husband and me. That had been a good situation. Daddy has always been a social person, interested in the events of the day and the people around him and their lives. His care givers were kind, efficient, and best of all, they enjoyed visiting with him.

As his dementia worsened, it was obvious that we needed someone awake 24 hours-a-day, so he would be safe. It would have been financially prohibitive to have individual care givers around the clock, and it was too much for me. So he moved into an assisted care facility.

The facility was beautiful. He had a studio apartment and could push a button on his wrist for a care giver and they would come right away. The food was excellent -- a priority for my father. His enjoyment of food has not diminished in spite of the dementia.

Now, Daddy has always been the kind of man to get things done. He would analyze a problem, consider the options, then solve it. His natural inclination to jump-to-it has not diminished.

Therein lies the problem. He could remember to push the call button, but he couldn't remember to wait for a care giver. He's wobbly. And the disinclination to wait has led to a number of falls. None has caused injuries more serious than bruising, but injuries were inevitable if we went on this way.

Looking for a facility that offers 24-hour care was in the realm of tragedy. I would visit one. It would smell clean. The rooms were bright and cheerful. The staff were gracious and attentive, but the patients were all sitting in wheelchairs staring off into the distance.

Then a friend told me that her father had been in a residential care home. These are regular houses modified to take care of people. They have six or eight patients with trained care givers 24 hours-a-day. In the one I visited, the patients were all involved in various things. The sun had come out and a good ending to this story seemed at hand.

Before Daddy moved to his new home, he was concerned that the other people there would not "be as bad off" as he. I reassured him that some would not be and others would be worse off.

And truly that was the case. His roommate uses a walker and oxygen, still reads the daily paper and works Sudoku puzzles. One day the man was watching a television show -- on a Spanish language channel. He is not Hispanic and multilingual people are a rarity in our society. I asked him if he spoke Spanish. He looked at me as though my question made no sense at all. "No," he said. So his Sudoku puzzles may be only an entertainment in the same way. I don't know. I've not looked too closely.

When Daddy's doctor asked him if he had a roommate, Daddy surprised me by saying there was "a man who rides the same broomstick." He meant his roommate. Comedy? Daddy has always had a good sense of humor, but this was not an example of that. His confusion is advancing.

Daddy moved March 5. We moved all Daddy's stuff out of his apartment Sunday, March 6. Kind of sad really because there isn't enough room in his new bedroom for his things. He does have the really big clock that he can see in spite of his macular degeneration and the wedding picture of him and Momma and Momma's high school graduation picture.

But that night I had Downton Abbey.

Downton Abbey has been my favorite TV series for all of its six years. My husband calls it a soap opera, and I suppose it is. But I care about the characters and it always seems to come out pretty much right for those characters or at least give me hope that it will. Eventually. It is the hour that I can escape my own dramas and enjoy someone else's.

The final episode. Everything changes. Everything comes to an end.

I was actually afraid that the whole thing would be tied neatly up with a shiny red bow. Words like "syrupy sweet" and "maudlin" hovered around me, threatening to undo my great regard for Fellowes' writing. How was Julian Fellowes going to end it without caving in the most Hallmarkian fashion to the public's desire that Edith be happy?

I was more concerned with Thomas. I know, I know. I adopt unlovable parrots that bite. Lovable dogs that bite. Eccentric cats that bite. I even liked Snape all the way through the Harry Potter books.

And, whether Fellowes handled it well or not (which by-the-bye, he did handle it well) the more anxiety provoking was what was I going to do with the rest of my Sunday nights?

Then, to top it all off, I decided to make a banana nut bread with the bananas Daddy had left in his apartment.

I turned on the oven to preheat, mashed the bananas, chopped the walnuts, stirred up the batter, poured it into a Pyrex baking dish that once belonged to my mother, and discovered that my oven was not heating.

Well, #$#@!

A new question -- does banana nut bread dough freeze well? Even more importantly does it bake well after being thawed?

But my husband looked it up oven repair on the internet and ordered a part. It's so nice to be married to him. Yesterday the part came and he fixed the oven.

Today is Sunday. And we have banana nut bread to eat with whatever I do with my Sunday night.

All's Well that Ends Well, not a line from a Shakespeare play, but the title. A play that the critics cannot put into a single category, but must be included in both his comedies and his tragedies. Just like life.

                    

           Thomas in a bowler, a sure sign of success at last.        A fine loaf of banana nut bread.