When in doubt, ask...

“…I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm going to try with a little help from my friends
Oh I get high with a little help from my friends
Yes I get by with a little help from my friends.”

- Lennon J, McCartney P

The elderly balding man, wearing a pair of grey pants and a light colored short sleeve shirt leaned against the driver’s side door of a red Cadillac sedan…clearly in distress.

He was holding the wrist of a grey haired woman, wearing a brown skirt just below the knee, a cream colored blouse and a light brown unbuttoned sweater – the kind one wears just to keep the morning chill away.  The woman was shorter than the man, and at first glance it appeared he was holding on to her as he leaned against the car suggesting he was in the midst of a heart attack or stroke.  I heard her say somewhat frantically, “Call 911 please!”

As I headed toward the car, it became evident the event was not at all what I thought.  The woman was trying to get away from the man, not trying to steady him.  Just as I got there, she broke away and said, “He wants to drive home!  He almost had an accident on the way over here, nearly killing us, please call 911.”  The elderly man looked menacingly at his wife and growled, “Give me the keys!!”  Just then a middle-aged man came up, quickly understood the situation and said to the man, “Please get in the passenger side of your car.”  He was a big fellow and had the kind of presence that carried some authority.  The expression on the older man’s face showed he was making a quick calculation, and that it was clear both myself and the other fellow were more than he had any interest in confronting.  He scowled, mumbled something, walked around to the other side of the car and got in.

The woman, still shaken, but with an expression of relief, got in the driver’s side of the car.  Just before she closed the door, I said, “Are you going to be safe?  Will he try to hurt you?”  “No,” she replied, “Everything is fine now.  Thank you so much.”

The flashback…

“Dad, I need to have your car keys,” I said. 

“Try to take them and see what happens,” he replied with a dark and defiant expression.

“Today was the second time you drove off the road.  The Parkinson’s is too far along for you to safely drive the car anymore,” I continued.  “Go to hell,” he retorted.

I took the keys, and can mark on the calendar, this was the day my father began to die.  The one symbol of independence his progressive and devastating neurologic disease had now stolen was his car.  He mourned that loss, and as long as his mind was good, he never really forgave me for taking them…He was gone within the year.

Wiser this time?

“Nancy, I think you need to stop driving the car hon,” I had said to her.  By this time, she had lost the ability to read road signs and navigated to places she still knew by landmarks.  Now that was slipping away and there was the very real possibility that she would either get lost or have a serious accident.

I wasn’t the only one who had talked with her about this, her daughter, Mariah, had also expressed concern.  In spite of this, I knew if I took her keys, I could lose whatever diminishing relationship I had with her.

I had learned a painful lesson with my father.  We contacted the State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and reported her to be an unsafe driver.  This is an anonymous complaint system from which the State revokes a person’s license until they can take a new driver’s test, both written and practical.  For months she ranted about the DMV.  “I am a good driver!” “Who the hell are they?” “They don’t know me!!”

Dutifully, she got the State Rules of the Road publication and studied diligently.  By this time, she had slipped further and we watched with heavy hearts as she copied that book long hand, by now believing if she turned in the hand written copy of the manual, they would restore her license.  Eventually, the hand writing became unreadable as the project drifted away into thick clouds of Alzheimer’s filling her mind like a smudge bomb exploding in the basement of an old home; invading every room with black, impenetrable smoke.  Yeah…it finally went away, but like my father before her…it hurt.

Déjà vu…

Until close to the end, Molly’s mother never lost hope she would be back in the car, running errands, shopping and going to church.  It had been a couple of years since she had fractured her pelvis, survived hospital infections and health relapses…none of which seemed to dissuade her from the belief she would drive again.

It was different for her.  My father had both mental and physical issues in his last years, and Nancy had simply slipped away into some unknown cognitive spider web of a reality only she understood.

Mary? Her mind was good and clear and engaged, nearly to the end.  Her tiny, 80 plus year old body fought with everything it had, and yet the battle could not be won as she slipped away, inches at a time.  Oh, she probably knew at some point she might not drive again, but she never gave up hope…never gave up hope…but in the end…gave up hope…  As her world began to close in on her, you could sense the end was near.

What about me?

Having had these experiences as life lessons, has made me wonder if I might be able to change the dynamics of the aging game in my life. I have had conversations with a small number of people in whom I have significant trust. The conversations?  If they tell me I need to make adjustments to my independence…I will listen.  If they say I can no longer safely drive…I will give them my keys.  If they express that Molly is no longer able to manage me…I will accept necessary changes.

Yes indeed, I have had these open, intimate and sensitive conversations, because I do not want to be unsafe either to myself or to those I deeply love.

This, of course, is an untested hypothesis.  Will talking openly about these things make any difference?  Will I be able say, as I look out through the windows of my life and mind, “Yes, I understand, you are right…whatever you think is best.”  

To be frank, I have no idea!

I can only hope that by acknowledging the downward glideslope of my life...by living every moment I can in a life promoting way, and embracing with enthusiasm the natural process by which I prepare for the transition that comes to every living creature at the end of this part of their journey, I will be grateful in those moments I cannot see without help, for those in whom there has been a collective investment of love and trust…

By the way, anybody seen my car keys?

- ted

We all need a little help…

 “I don't need a friend who changes when

I change and who nods when I nod;

my shadow does that much better.”

– Lucius Plutarch

Sometimes you should ask, sometimes you should listen, and sometimes you just need to be told…

I wrote the email quickly, as can happen when my fire has been lit.  I had been asked and answered the same question three or four times…I was frustrated and expressed the distress in blunt, and fairly harsh terms.  It doesn’t happen very often, but in the past when it has, I sent these sorts of things off right away…

The reasons my finger held short of the send key had to do with friends I have cultivated over the years…most have long since passed away and one of them as current as the daily news.  While there are others, three folks are pertinent to this discussion - Sol, Lucius and Molly.  None of them have met because they lived at different times, but somehow all of them have a fair amount in common, particularly as it relates to my almost overwhelming desire to ‘pull the trigger’ on that email!!!

Sol would be King Solomon, second Monarch to the Jewish Nation.  Lucius’ surname was Plutarch, a Greek historian and writer while Molly…well her surname would be the same as mine, since she and I have been cohabitating for nearly 35 years.

Solomon’s words have been in my mind for decades.  In situations like this he would say soft answers are much better than harsh…they sooth the soul, both for the one feeling the rising anger and the person just about to be on the receiving end. 

As it happened, whilst this small drama unfolded, I had been reading Plutarch’s essays on Morality, and in particular in the early morning of this particular day, the treatise “On Restraining Anger.”  It was strange to be in this annoying situation at precisely the same time I was reading strategies describing how to manage anger when it erupts, be alert to see it coming, understand how completely counterproductive explosive anger can be and recognize the value of decompressing BEFORE it emerges full force into the universe!  

Plutarch says when Socrates felt anger rising in his soul he would “…lower his voice, and put on a smiling countenance, and give his eye a gentler expression, by inclining in the other direction and running counter to his passion, thus keeping himself from fall and defeat.”  He continues “…it is best…to be calm, or to flee to a haven of quiet, when we feel the fit of temper coming upon us as an epileptic fit, that we fall not, or rather fall not on others…” 

I have over the years, quite fallen in love with the words of writers like Plutarch, because they provide companionship to the scriptural teachings upon which I was nurtured by the gentle and loving hands of my parents.  They seem to reach somewhere deeply inside of me and resonate with the rich harmony of a melodically tight group of a cappella singers.  So I read them and appreciate how helpful they are and how they continue to shape my life. 

Philosophy?  No, just common sense…

Molly on the other hand, seems simply to get this sort of thing without much thought – “Without much thought” meaning she has this built in wisdom and life experience that does not require much flowery language.  So Plutarch expresses eloquent words to think about in quiet moments…you know, by putting on some mental armor to protect others, and myself while Molly looks at me and says, “You had better not send that email!  Take a few minutes and come back to it.”  She didn’t need either Solomon or Plutarch to get it…furthermore she didn’t need their words.  She simply continued, “If you send that email, you will regret it later.”

In the moment, it was everything I could do to not hit that ‘send’ button.  The passion growing in my tummy erupting into the cosmic mistiness of lower brain neurons were able to overwhelm concepts by which I try to live my life, AND the words I had read that very morning and had been thinking about a good part of the day. 

It is not that she nagged or warned or cajoled or kept at it – nope, she made the simple statement above, closing her remarks with, “Do whatever you want, I’m just saying…” Damn, that well aimed arrow struck directly in my heart!!

I did not hit the send key, but slipped away and made a phone call to see if I could get a little clarity and better understanding of the situation.  It turned out the call was friendly, helpful and settled the issue completely. 

When I returned to the computer the waters had calmed, the storm having passed over with no casualties to report, and I seemed to be in my right mind.

Just before deleting the unsent email, I reread it and was struck by its tone and forcefulness, neither of which would I like to have put out to the cyber universe, let alone be received by a colleague and friend.  What had seemed extremely appropriate in the moment of writing appeared to be oddly out of place and character, for indeed it was.  In that moment I was grateful for Sol, Lucius and Molly.

There is something about stepping away to breathe that makes a difference in the nature of our lives.  In the heat of the moment, what seems to be the best solution to make things work, is often the very thing that creates further problems.  Going into a quiet room is something I practice on a regular basis, because it makes the quality of life so much better.  There are moments like these, however, when the resources gathered over the years seem to have abandoned me, or are at the very least inaccessible, I am grateful for the physical presence and reminder that sometimes we just need help to keep alert to things just outside our peripheral vision. 

While there is little doubt I appreciate those old writers and their guidance in my life, their words are static and require thoughtful consideration.  Molly on the other hand has no such restraint.  Her words were NOT static and fit the unfolding moment like a glove,

“You had better not send that email!!”

“If you send that email, you will regret it later.”

“Do what you want, I’m just saying…”

They worked and the problem was solved.

I’m just saying…

- ted

The Samaritan was good...

“A man…was attacked by robbers…a priest passed by….

a Levite…passed by…But a Samaritan…

took pity on him…

go and do likewise.”

– Christ: The Bible

Thunk…thunk…thunk… The rhythm was consistent, but seemed unrelated to the smooth asphalt surface I was riding on.   Nine miles down and three to go on an isolated trail that ran beside a broad ‘wash’ which during the rainy season drains and combines rivulets of water from the surrounding mountains until they rush like the mighty wind…gravity pulling the flowing wetness from their peaks.

Thunk…thunk…thunk… The ride had been smooth, but what was that rhythmic beat I both heard and felt?  I stopped the bike and got off.  The sound?  I was riding the rim of a completely flat front tire!!

What a great day…

The morning had been a chilly 35 degrees (1.6C), but as the day found its early afternoon tempo, the temperature in this desert southwest community made its way to the upper 60s (15+C) with a gentle breeze as refreshing as a newborn baby’s breath!  Yep, the morning had passed and I had an itch to get on my bike and go for a ride.

Tucson is one of the most bicycle friendly cities I have ever been in.  Our little neighborhood sits just on the edge of one of the north south avenues that can be pretty busy at the boundaries of the day during rush hour.   Early afternoon is NOT such a time, and the bike lane for the first mile or so is wide and smooth.  After that, there are small two-lane bicycle/walking trails that make the 12-mile loop from door to door, on the edge of the Catalina mountains, a beautiful and safe ride!

A bit of history…

I have ridden off and on for many years.  While my first bicycle came in the form of a hand me down in my sixth year; our family moved to West Virginia in my eighth year, and those ‘West Virginia Hills’ proved too much of a barrier for frequent bike riding.  Those began the ‘off’ years. 

The next ‘on’ would be nearly 20 years later when studying for a graduate degree in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.  There was no money for a car, and since I lived a fair distance from the university, a bicycle became my transportation.  It was great to ride that fall, as the air cooled and the orchards across the Mississippi River in La Crescent, Minnesota began to distribute the fruit of their labor – the best freshly picked Honey Crisp apples I had ever eaten!  Winter, on the other hand, was a bit more of a challenge, but as long as there was either no snow or the roads were plowed, that old bike worked well – even when the temperatures were well below zero (-17.7C)!

Bicycle transportation stayed ‘on’ through more graduate work in Missouri, a marriage to Molly Ann Eberhard, and the first few years of teaching at a local university in Jefferson City, where the two of us landed and remained, I might add, for nearly 30 years.  We had a car, but I loved riding that bike. 

In the late 80s, biking was ‘off,’ with a research position in Columbia, Missouri some 30 miles (48km) north of our home.  I tried to ride on weekends, but it wasn’t long before that old bike found its way into the hands of some unknown ‘yard sale poker arounder.’  I loved the work, but there is little doubt, I missed that old peddle pusher!

Happy days are here again…

In 2008, we moved to San Diego, California in a somewhat circuitous route from Missouri, by way of four more non-biking years in Troy, Michigan.  San Diego is a bike riding town, where lone riders and packs – up to 20 or more – can be seen riding all over the county.  By now in my sixties, I wondered whether I still had ‘heat’ for self propelled transportation, so after asking some questions of friends who rode, I purchased a hybrid bike, and rode that thing until last year when a 65 year old man (just my age at the time) was hit by a car and killed.  The fellow was following proper riding etiquette, but simply found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The bike switch turned ‘off.’

It is important to note here, that I am NOT really a bike rider…I am a noodler.  Bike riders routinely travel pretty significant distances, and do so with great vigor!   Most of the ones I know tell me of the 50 to 100 miles treks they do on weekends, you know…just because!  A noodler, on the other hand, just pokes around investigating neighborhoods, with the occasional 10 to 15 mile stretch of moderate speed riding – moderate meaning 12 or so miles per hour (19km/hr).

Thunk…thunk…

When I realized the tire was flat, I called Molly to tell her the situation.  I had ridden on that flat for nearly five minutes before the ‘foot/brain’ connection was made, so if the rim had been damaged, I had a couple of miles of bike pushing before she could meet me with the car. 

I flipped the bike over, took of the front wheel, grateful it had been the front and NOT the back tire, and went about the business of removing the inner tube from the wheel.  Everything about the deal was pretty good news.  The rim was good; I had a spare in a little pack under the seat, along with some tools and a small gas cylinder with which to inflate the new tire.

I had moved the bike just off the trail so that it would not be in anyone’s way, and as I went about the process of making the switch several bikers and walkers passed by without saying anything. 

Just as I seated the new inner tube to the rim and began slipping the tire in place on top of it, a voice from out of nowhere said, “Hey, do you need any help?”  You know the way it is when you are concentrating on something and don’t realize you are?  I did not hear the biker come up, I did not even sense his presence, and so the voice startled me.

I turned around to see a fellow about my age, bike parked on the other side of the path.  “I’m sorry, what?” I said.  “Do you need any help?” he replied.  “No thanks,” I continued, “I’m just finishing up,” turning back to my bike.  He tethered the conversation a little more by saying, “You’re lucky it was the front tire.  A back tire flat can be a bitch to change!”  I was thinking, “Listen man, thanks, but I have a tire to fix here and get home.”  Then I had that little voice in my head saying, “Hey, pay attention here.  Do you think this guy stopped by accident?”

With that, we began a bit of small talk.  Doug was his name.  He had been a Wall Street Bonds professional, who had been successful enough to retire in his early forties.  He had been married a couple of times siring four children; now well into productive professional careers.  

It turns out he was talkative and interesting…not so much worthy of a story here…except for this.  I was about to ask him a little about how he enjoyed retirement in Tucson.  We are new here, and it seemed like a good opportunity to get a little insight into the community.  Maybe this was the reason to carry on the conversation.

It turns out he was NOT from Tucson and knew nothing about it.  So what the heck was he doing on this trail, on this day, at this time? 

In fact, he was by himself pulling a big camper, with his dog, from Florida to San Diego, where he decided he would spend the winter.  While having been in Los Angeles any number of times in his life, he had never been to San Diego and thought he and the dog might enjoy the winter climate.   Somewhere in Northern Arizona the animal got sick.  As he headed through Phoenix to pick up Interstate 8 to San Diego, the dog became much worse.  He frantically drove to Tucson, found an animal surgeon who, as it turns out, saved the dog’s life. Without the surgery it would have died a miserably painful death from a twisted stomach.

Doug had parked his camper in a local State Park, and thought a bike ride might relieve some of the stress and depression he felt from nearly having lost his dog.  In fact, he really did not know where he was and was just about to turn around and return on the trail the way he had come when he saw me.

We hung around chatting for a few minutes and I told him he was actually on the ‘down hill side’ of a loop that he could complete if he kept going, heading toward my place.  “Let’s ride together then.” He said.

The next three miles we took our time, chatting comfortably as though we had been lifetime friends.  As we got to the gate of my little neighborhood we pulled off the road before he headed for his final five miles.  I thanked him for stopping to see if he could help.  He said, “No, thank you!  I really didn’t have any tools with me to be able to help, I just felt to stop, and I was rewarded.  I was depressed and needed to talk about my dog…your company filled the bill.” 

Paying attention...

Usually, these kinds of things happen to me because I try to keep my antenna alert to possible situations and experiences.  I am usually NOT on the receiving end.  This week, I was reminded that an open hand works both ways, and while Doug felt he got more than he gave, he was wrong.  We both got exactly what we needed…a human connection in a moment when we were both open.  Had he not stopped, nothing would have happened, yet he did.  He needed to talk about his dog; I needed to pay better attention in the midst of my own circumstance.

What began as a good day became a great day, and I realized that life is not always about the ride, often it is about the flat tires!

- ted

Night visions...

“You can choose to do what you want,

but you cannot choose to want what you want.”

– Anonymous

It was late…we were supposed to meet and go out together. I had been texting…she had not been answering – the texts or the calls…I wasn’t happy.

I gave up and decided to go without her.

Just as I put on my coat she came in the door with Billy H., an old friend from church in Missouri.  He actually did not come in, but stayed just outside the door on the small, lighted porch, his pale, slender face slightly illuminated in the background. 

This was not the first time and one would think I would know better…

She was different…

Her life was so often like this.  To be around her was to accept the inevitable truth that one cannot build fences around windmills, and to be around her was to acknowledge this simply came with the territory.

Trying to hide, what had been a building frustration, and in a tone more like a petulant child, I replied,  “I thought you weren’t going to make it so I was just heading out.”  She ignored the tone, and simply said, “Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be ready.”

I was upset, but it had always been hard for me to stay angry with her.  There was just something about her rhythm…her look…her spirit.  Like the unrelenting tug of gravity…it simply ‘was,’ and the truth is, I loved her for it.  It was kind of like remaining angry with her was not acceptable – simply not an option.  An almost palpable aura came off her like the mist on an autumn morning drifting upward from the calm waters of a small back country pond. The unmistakable unspoken sensation that reached across the room saying,  “You understand you are NOT permitted to be upset with me.  Right?”  And so, as I had been so diligently trained over the decades we had known each other…I could not be.

It had always been like that with her.  You know how it is when you are connected with someone – the recognition over time how special and important it is.  It is something you know in the quietness of your heart, that while there may be acquaintances and deeply held friends…there are few with whom we really connect…in that honest pulsing place where no one but the Almighty can see, where few…very few…seem to inherently know the combination to that secret portal of the soul, reaching straight in, past the barriers – real or imagined – to touch us with the clarity of the first rays of sunshine slipping over the mountains on the eastern horizon.

Back to the event…

She came in, took off her coat, put her things down, made the “…sorry…” comment in her own way…knowing it was really unnecessary, because it was unconditionally accepted by me.  “Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll be ready,” she had said.  And so she was, and off we went to some event that has been lost to the night reveries with which she came.  The event may have slipped away, but the ‘time’ with her was not.  While I have known few who could so frustrate me, I have known none I consistently felt so much life with.

It is a strange thing…dreaming…

It had been quite awhile since I had seen her.  It is not that I hadn’t tried to connect with her…it is not that I hadn’t prayed for her to come to me…it is not that I hadn’t needed to feel her spirit again, but that great ‘scheduler in the sky’ had not been able to get anything set up on her calendar or mine. My texts and calls to Him had also gone unanswered, but then what does one say to the Creator of the Universe? – “Hey, are you listening to me?”  Probably not.

So I tucked into bed like every other night with no expectation.  The day had been long and I was tired…the gentle ‘gift of the gods’ came quickly.

“It was late…we were supposed to meet and go out together. I had been texting…she had not been answering – the texts or the calls…I wasn’t happy.

I gave up and decided to go without her.”

Epilogue…

I woke from the dream with a tear stained face…not tears of sorrow, but pleasure and joy for having been able to spend a little time with her once again, even if it was only in my mind in the drifting vapors of a dream.

It will be two years in February since my sister left us, in the withering pitch black, cobweb filled cave of Alzheimer’s, her essence wrapped tightly in the strangling straight jacket of impending death.  This is the way she left us…it is NOT the way she lived her life. 

I look forward to ‘seeing her’ again…

- ted