LifePundit

Happy Confederate Memorial Day!

This is a photo I took on Saturday of South Carolina's State House. That's Lily in the front left. I don't know who the Confederate re-enactors are, but I'm sure they were hot. They were also extremely serious people, like the Beefeater guards you can't get to acknowledge you.

Not that Lily was one to find out. I could hardly get her to stand in the same town with them to get this photo.

"Who are those people?" she asked.

"Why do you think I'd know?" I answered. I have a lot of crazy friends but most keep to themselves and dress normally. "Just stand in front of the State House so I can get your picture." I practically had to haul her over there and sit on her just to get this picture. This was as close as she would get to them.

"They look like rapists," she said.

"They're not. They're just men with a love of history and too much time on their hands," I said.

"Why are they doing that?"

"Smile, honey, and we can get this over with."

We had a wonderful confluence (is that the word) of things this past weekend. Lily had a school project where she has to take pictures of various historic places (about 25 in all) downtown. She gets extra credit if she's in the photo.

And I got a brand new Nikon D60 for my birthday and Mother's Day. Yahoo! As soon as the battery charged, we were off, with Paul driving and Lily and me hopping out in traffic to take the photos.

Today I found out from a friend who works in state government that today is Confederate Memorial Day and she has the day off. So that's why there were sweaty re-enactors standing in front of the Confederate Memorial. (Though I'm beginning to think that a secession might be in order with the Obama administration doing all it can to dismantle what made America great. But that's another topic.)

Here's probably my favorite picture of the day -- Lily standing by the Gervais Street bridge. Sherman's troops sat on the other side of the river and shelled Columbia from there before crossing the river to burn the city.

I remember that Confederate Memorial Day was something my mother observed, but I don't remember how. Maybe just by remembering. She knew her grandfather, who was in Virginia when the war ended and had to walk home to South Carolina. She told me once about how as children she and her siblings would pretend to listen to their grandfather tell his stories, would say "yes sir" and nod their heads and not listen to a word. She said she regretted that she didn't pay more attention, that she didn't remember more. I guess when Confederate Memorial Day rolled around she remembered all that she could remember. And more. Now she can't remember who I am.

For those of us who can still remember, Happy Confederate Memorial Day.

Not Everybody is as Nice as My Mother

When I say that not everybody is as nice as my mother, what I'm really saying is that my mother-in-law continued to be a trial throughout the Thanksgiving weekend.

Which doesn't mean that my mother isn't the nicest mother out there, which she is. My mother was accepting, welcoming and non-judgmental. She didn't whine, complain, or accuse Thanksgiving guests of stealing the cranberry sauce.

Yes, when I arrived home from my in-laws' on Thanksgiving night, the phone started ringing. It was my dear mother-in-law, accusing me of stealing the cranberry sauce. Little did she know how close I had been to throwing it at her, but no, I did not steal the cranberry sauce.

"So if you don't have it, who does?" she demanded.

"I don't know."

"No one else could have taken it. Are you sure you don't have the cranberry sauce?"

"I didn't take it," I said. I wondered if I should call a lawyer.

"Well, where can it be? It's not here. Are you sure you don't have it?" she said.

I explained to her in a kinder voice than she deserved that the only things I had brought from her house were the leftovers of the things I had taken there, and that in fact, I had left her a pie.

Still, where was the $&@*#$&@*$&! cranberry sauce?

As it turns out, my father-in-law had GIVEN it to my husband, who had stayed later than I had and was coming home in a different car. My father-in-law is not allowed to make such weighty decisions on his own, such as what to do with the leftovers that they usually discard, so my mother-in-law demanded that my husband bring the cranberry sauce back as she wanted it.

The next morning when we met them and the other relatives for a day at the zoo, the first words out of my MiL's mouth were, "Where is the cranberry sauce?"

Since it was going to be in the mid-60s and we were going to be gone all day, my husband said he didn't think it was a good idea for the cranberry sauce to be in the car in the heat. Just think. What if he had brought it, the cranberries had turned, and my MiL got sick? Oh, the tempation!

When we were at the zoo and my MiL was sitting alone in the back while the rest of us were watching the penguins being fed, my husband thought he would be nice and go keep her company. He found a seat by her and the only thing she said to him was, "I can't believe you took my cranberry sauce."

That night at dinner, after the cranberry sauce had been returned, she made a toast to the &*(@#&$*)@(# cranberry sauce.

There is much, much more on other unpleasant subjects and I had to leave Thanksgiving dinner to take a walk to get away. Everyone else is nice. Just not her and she spreads her venom and misery like a flood.

She came to our house on Saturday and said to me, "I don't think other women would put up with Paul." I think this was her best attempt at a compliment.

Not everyone is as nice as my mother. And no, I didn't take the cranberry sauce, but I very well may throw it next time.

Playing God

I knew it was bad when I saw Dipstick, my mother's cat that I took when she went into Alzheimer's care, dragging his leg and refusing to eat. His breathing was rapid and labored and his feet were cold. I made him as comfortable as I could until I could take him to the vet.

The diagnosis: saddle thrombosis. Dipstick threw a blood clot (he no doubt had heart disease but we didn't know that) that lodged in the branch of his arteries that fed his hind legs. Without blood flow, one leg was paralyzed and both were cold to the touch. The vet couldn't pick up a pulse in either hind leg. Dipstick purred while I petted him, but he was clearly a hurting kitty.

I've already been through this with another cat. That cat, Woody, suddenly started screaming in the early morning hours. His legs were paralyzed and he dragged himself around in excrutiating pain. I thought he had fallen from the hay loft and broken his back, or that a horse had kicked him. I took him to the vet and they opened their office early for me. I was shocked at the diagnosis of saddle thrombosis, and with Woody, I told them to try to dissolve the clot.

I should have listened more closely. Even if they did dissolve the clot, Woody would never regain the use of his legs. After a day of Woody being hooked up to IVs transporting every clot dissolver known to man, I got a phone call that they couldn't save him. He was getting much worse. I went to the vet's office to see my beautiful Woody panting, eyes glazed with medication and seeming to suffer. The vet euthanized him immediately, which was probably several hours after it should have happened. 

Dipstick didn't scream with pain like Woody did, but he was clearly hurting. The options were the same as with Woody, but this time, I decided not to try to save a cat that was suffering and would continue to suffer. I hate playing God.

The vet said it was possible that the clot-dissolving drugs would work, but that he had only been able to save one cat with them in his whole career. And that cat had developed the same problem two months later and had to be euthanized.

I said goodbye to Dipstick and petted him while they tried to sedate him before euthanasia. His blood flow was so poor that the sedation didn't work. Though I am usually with my pets when I have them euthanized, I couldn't do it this morning. Something about Dipstick being my mother's cat made it extra hard.

Dipstick got his name from Lily when she was quite young and had just seen 102 Dalmations. There was a puppy with that name who also had a black tail and a mainly white body in the movie, just like my mother's cat, Dipstick. Dipstick was a good companion for my mother when she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's. He went where she went and kept her company. She loved him. Now she doesn't remember either of us.

I wish I could have done more for him than provide a merciful death.

A Great Gift Idea for an Elderly Person

There's a new digital picture frame out that can receive photos directly from cell phones. That would be fun for nearly anyone -- I'd love such a thing at my desk, assuming anyone would send me photos. But think how wonderful that would be for an elderly person stuck at home or in a nursing home.

Your children, grandchildren, friends, etc. could send you photos of their vacations and of their daily lives. You don't have to know how to use a computer. Poof! and the photo of your newest grandbaby is there.

Really cool idea. Hope it works. Read the review here.

Overheard at the Vet's

Tiger isn't eating. This is very bad news and quite uncharacteristic. So we took him to the vet.

Not sure what's wrong with him, but his white blood cell count is up. Now he's on antibiotics and appetite stimulants and we're hoping it will all get better.

In the room next door was a cat who was an even worse patient than Tiger. This cat was screaming from his carrier. Lily and I got a great laugh when we heard the cat's owner say to the vet tech:

Don't take his temperature. This cat is 17 years old. He doesn't need to have anything stuck up his (rear end).

Amen.

Life, Death, Hemorrhoidal Cancer, Evolution, Sub-prime Mortgages, God's Will and Everything Else

Teddy Kennedy got brain cancer and P. J. O'Rourke got hemorrhoidal cancer, which I can't  even spell.

Very funny, touching and even theologically profound op-ed here.

I wish him well, and if he figures out the right color of bracelet he should be wearing, I'll wear one for him.

Hat tip: Instapundit

"I Hate the Way You Breathe"

(Image: Edwin Forrest as King Lear)

I've started several posts lately and have deleted them all. I don't know if I still have regular readers left, but for those of you who know my situation, my father turned 96 in August. We celebrated with a home-made cake, but there's getting to be less and less to celebrate.

On this blog I've tried to write only good things, or funny things, about other people, which has sometimes resulted in my whitewashing certain people. But I have to confess that my situation with my father and Non-Saintly Brother is moving from being in "King Lear" to being on the Jerry Springer Show.  That's more than you need to know and all that I will tell.

So, I'm launching a new category to get away from it all: Teenagers!

Each day I offend teenage sensibilities. I find my offenses quite funny, and hope you will, too. But before I start relating my abundant sins, I'm going to tell a friend's story.

This friend, whom I'll call Becky because that's her name, had a teenage son who found her quite distressing. In particular, he hated the way she sang in the car while driving him places.

"Mom, would you please quit singing?" he demanded. So she did.

"Mom! Quit humming!" So she did.

They went along, driving in silence, when suddenly he complained again, this time in total exasperation. "Mom! I HATE the way you breathe."

So far, my breathing has not come under criticism. But here are the things I've done wrong today:

1. Was not funny when I thought I was;
2. Called the dog "Waggles" (not his name);
3. Issued small but apparently extremely offensive burp;
4. Have hair that sticks up in the back (I was fresh from the beauty shop and paid extra for that little touch);
5. Am going out to dinner with friends and leaving Paul to cook pork chops on the grill;
6. Let the horses graze in the side yard without supervision (it's fenced).

But I got revenge. I dropped her off at  her second piano lesson this week and she's been there for hours. Lily has to play at a reception for the philharmonic's new conductor on Saturday, and in preparation the teacher is going to keep Lily at her lesson today until Lily achieves perfection.

Piano teachers: the best revenge on teenage daughters.

Physical Therapy and Immortality

If only he worked out more, my father would live forever. He believes this and he's about to prove it. He'll be 96 one month from today and he's passed his doctor's generous predictions for his longevity, given his aortic stenosis and congestive heart failure, by one year.

So my father's given up on working out in his room with his dumb bells and he's going back to physical therapy at the assisted living place where he lives. He says he can tell that it's helping him. He's stronger and feels better.

He's still on oxygen, still struggling to stay vertical, still hits the floor about once a week. I think the floor is starting to complain.

I told this story about my father's return to physical therapy and his improvement to my husband, Paul, who's been such a wonderful support during my father's brinkmanship with death over the last couple of years.

"That's great he's working out," said Paul, who's 51. "When I move up there to the nursing home, I'll join him."

I thought this was funny, so I told Saintly Brother. He said, "The difference is our father can run on fumes; Paul can't."

It's a wondrous thing what the human will can overcome.

I Miss My Mother

My mother has had Alzheimer's for ten years. For ten years, I haven't been able to call her and have a sensible conversation. For ten years, she's suffered the confusion of not knowing who she is, where she is or whether she is safe or not, and there's very little we can do for her other than tell her lies to comfort her, which she'll forget in an instant anyway. It's a far worse disease than merely forgetting. I had no idea.

Since she's been "gone" so long, you'd think I was used to it. But I still find myself thinking, "I'll call Mama and tell her what happened. That will make her laugh (or she'll come to my defense, depending on the situation)." Or, "I'll call Mama and ask her how to cook this (or handle that)."

But I can't call Mama. She's still among the breathing and sometimes among the laughing and talking, but those phone calls are gone, along with her memory. It's been ten years. You'd think I wouldn't still have the impulse to call her, and then have to remember that's not a possibility.

I have a friend whose mother died when my friend was a pre-teen. Her growing up was hard, but she says now that she's grateful that she's not having to deal with an aging mother. Though that sounds cold, there is some truth to it. And elderly parent can be a blessing and/or a burden. Since my friend had no choice about losing her mother when she needed her most, she may as well have reconciled that with something positive.

I'm beginning to realize that when my mother is really gone, and has been gone for decades, I'll still be seconds away from picking up the phone to call her. It's not quite as good as the real thing, but at those times I can summon up something from my memory about her and visit with that. When she could still answer the phone, I believe I called her up enough to almost be able to predict what she would say. No, that's not true. Sometimes the call wasn't about the question, but about the loving presence on the other end of the phone.

People who love a person with Alzheimer's are said to have "frozen grief." Mama is gone. But she's still here. So my grief is frozen somewhere, stuck between loss and not-yet-lost. It would be a mercy if she were released from this terrible disease, sent to heaven where her wits and her own mother wait. Could I, would I, miss her more if she was really gone? Would knowing that she's free but no longer here be worse than seeing her captive and confused but within my touch?

A counselor once told me that grief is a blessing because at least you have something to grieve -- something good that was lost.

That's my mother, one foot planted in the here and one in the hereafter, straddling the abyss of Alzheimer's. Still here, but surely lost.

Go Work Out While Working Out Still Works

When you're two months away from your 96th birthday, chances are that the people who sit with you at your table in assisted living will be younger than you. Chances are that the people everywhere you go are younger than you. Maybe not as full of life or determined to live, but younger.

Such is the case with my father. I think that is probably one of the rough edges of life in assisted living. You sit with the same people for every meal (the staff tries to put people of similar life experiences together) and they come.... then they go. They go to the hospital and don't return. They go to the Alzheimer's unit and don't return. They go to the nursing center and don't return, though my father sees them staring vacantly into space while parked in the dayroom in their wheelchairs when he goes to the nursing center to visit my mother.

He's enjoyed the company of a younger, more vigorous (though still old as dirt) man at his table for the past few months. All was well until the other night when my father was in the shower and this man walked in. The man asked, "Where do you get water for the dogs?"

My father said, "There aren't any dogs." And the man walked out.

The man is now missing -- he's been moved somewhere where he can't wander off. The staff doesn't talk much about what happens to people when they suddenly disappear, leaving their friends to wonder if they're dead or just elsewhere. Probably with the HIPA (if I used the right initials) regulations, the staff shouldn't talk at all. But these people are living together. They need to know what happened to their companions. My father misses his friend.

The list of his dinner companions has turned over many times. It's depressing. Not only does he miss his companions, but he has to wonder if he's next.

My father has developed some kind of lung infection within the last few days. Nobody has used the pneumonia word, or any word for that matter. He's on antibiotics and two other kinds of medications (in addition to the usual bowl of pills). He sounds terrible, says he feels terrible. But he tells me that if only he would take the time away from the garden to work out and get in better condition, then he would be all right. He says he's been too busy to work out and he's gotten in terrible shape. Working out would fix it all. (This is of course not true, as he has congestive heart failure and aortic stenosis. He's on oxygen and falls all the time.)

I got him to agree not to work out (he has free weights in his room) until after his lungs are clear.  I don't know how worried to be about this illness. If it can be shaken off, he will shake it. The will to live is a powerful thing.

In the meantime, those of us who are not 96 have no excuse. Go work out -- while working out still works.