Short film - long view...

“Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working

marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our

ears can hear the voices of our loved ones.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh

I lost my sister and mother to variations of Alzheimer’s disease – early and late onset respectively.

Nancy drifted into the abyss in a short four years, her final breath at the too early age of 62. Mother languished for more than a decade in the increasing darkness that pulled the life out of her with the unrelenting power of the receding lunar tides. Her final breath came at the age of 93.

The commonality between the two, was increasing blackness into which they fell with a deadly acceleration that did not plateau at 32 feet per second, per second (gravity’s pull).

Alzheimer’s is hard because it seems the mind becomes trapped in loops of repeated thought, simultaneously erased once spoken…each time retold as though it were the first.

One cannot predict any of this, but one can cherish and love those for whom they deeply care whilst they are still in their presence.

A friend from high school shared a video with me, herewith retold.

Picture the setting in your mind’s eye as the story unfolds.

Short film…

[Open] An old fellow (70ish) sitting on bench under shade of large tree with his son (late 30s) in the backyard of a large, old stone home…Old man stares forward; son reads newspaper.

A small bird makes an appearance; the dialogue begins:

OLD MAN

“What is that?”

Looking up from briefly from the paper, glancing at old man:

SON

“A sparrow.”

A few moments later the bird sings:

OLD MAN

“What is that?”

Shaking the paper for emphasis and looking at old man:

SON

“I just told you father, a sparrow!”

Cut to bird flying to the branch of beautiful green leafed maple tree and then to the ground, still singing.

Cut to old man continuing to stare forward:

 OLD MAN

“What is that?”

Exasperated and now clearly distracted:

SON

 “A sparrow father, a sparrow”

Increased emphasis and stern look spells word:

SON

 “S-P-A-R-R-O-W!”

Old man still staring forward.

OLD MAN

“What is that?”

The son angrily responds:

SON

“Why are you doing this?

I told you so many times,

it’s a sparrow!! Can’t you get it!?”

Silently, old man gets up from bench turns 180 degrees to the right and begins to walk away on stone path from bench.

SON

“Where are you going?”

Old man climbs stairs and disappears into house leaving an annoyed, frustrated son sitting alone.

Cut to scene a few minutes later:

Father returns with a book in hand and sits back down on bench. He thumbs through the pages until he finds a particular place and hands book to son, pointing to a particular passage.

Son begins to silently read:

OLD MAN

“Loud”

 Son reads aloud:

SON

“Today, my youngest son, who

a few days ago turned three, was

sitting with me at the park when

a sparrow sat in front of us.”

“My son asked me 21 times what

it was and I answered 21 times that

 it was [turning the page] a sparrow.”

“I hugged him every single time

he asked me the same question.

Again and again without getting

mad, feeling affection for my

innocent little boy.”

Young man weeps, reaches for father…hugs and kisses him.

Fade to black.

The Long view?

Love ‘em while you got ‘em...then love ‘em ‘til YOU are done!

- ted

Chronic disease - managed, not cured...

 Oh I get by with a little help from my friends

I get high with a little help from my friends

Gonna try with a little help from my friends

- Lennon & McCartney

I may possibly be as lazy a fellow as you will ever meet!

Laziness is like a chronic disease. It comes on almost imperceptibly, until it has you squarely in its clutches. As it is with most chronic disease, it is amazingly easy to do nothing about it – until it is very late in the game.

The paradox, of course, is that the ease with which one does nothing brings with it a free-floating anxiety leading to a sense of meaninglessness. In other words, the effects of chronicity get worse.

For my disease, I have found a lovely medicine that seems to help most of the time. The treatment? Duty! Duty, the sense of commitment, loyalty, faithfulness and even obligation is a powerful prescription indeed.

Take a moment and think about one or two things that have brought a sense of satisfaction to your life. 

I doubt you thought of a great party, special vacation taken or rock concert you attended. Chances are overwhelmingly good you thought about difficult tasks successfully accomplished:

- Surviving the war

- Raising children

- Finishing school

- Building a small business

- Overcoming a difficult relationship

- Remodeling a car

- <Fill in the blank in your life>

Duty…one of the great motivators in the journey of life.

A little understanding…

In medicine, chronic disease is NEVER cured, it is simply managed to minimize its effect on life’s activities. I have learned to use duty to manage my chronic cognitive disease!

To understand this more fully, consider profound Parkinson’s disease. I am intimate with this, because my father suffered the throes of this progressively malignant illness the last 20 years of his life.  It is a horrible disorder that slowly robs one of conscious motor control, while leaving them with pretty much intact reflexes. For example, they may not be able to more than shuffle on flat surfaces, yet walk almost normally on rough sidewalks or pavement. They may have great difficulty lifting their arm to grasp something, yet if you toss them a ball; they will reflexively and quickly reach out and grab it.

In the latter stages, some people are unable to even take a step forward while standing. A phenomenon of Parkinson’s is that if you place something in front of them on the floor, they will reflexively step right over it. By placing small objects sequentially in front of someone so afflicted, they are able to move from one place to another.

Chronic laziness management…

This brings me to ‘duty’ the small item that when placed in front of me, causes an almost reflex reaction to an event or circumstance I would NOT be able to perform on my own.

It works like this. I accept responsibility for a task...presentation…paper to write. I would NEVER, left to my own devices, be able to proactively take them on without having committed to them and utilizing duty to get them done!

Every single time, regardless of past experience, there is an uncertainty as to whether the task will be completed, yet there is the confidence that my old companion duty will be right there on my shoulder using whatever tools it might need to encourage, cajole, seduce or condemn me to get a move on and complete the mission.

Left to my own devices, I would have found myself rudderless in life’s uncharted oceans…an unwired brain treading water with not a single idea of the direction to go…drowning in confusion and self-doubt.

BUT – and it is a gratefully big BUT! Duty was there…has always been there, and for that I am grateful indeed.

I am certain God knows how to take care of wayward souls, and I am equally certain when He throws a life raft it is important to make the choice to climb in. I am further certain each of us has unique needs and require custom tools for our lives…for me it has been duty!

There is little doubt I suffer from a significantly chronic case of laziness…While duty may have cured nothing, it has certainly reduced the friction of the journey.

- ted

They come when you need 'em most...

“The skipping stone passing across the pond of time

touched my heart as it made its way to eternity.”

- Anonymous

Nancy is never far from my mind…the voice, the humor, the quiet and not so quiet moments…yeah, that girl is never far from my mind…

Reaching back…

The letter began, “To the eminently religious lady and holy daughter Sapida, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord.” The exact date is unknown, but it was written sometime after 429AD

Sapida had lost her brother for whom she had made a tunic. He died before receiving it, so she sent it to Bishop Augustine who seldom accepted gifts, because he felt it was important not to draw attention to himself. In this case, he made an exception writing, “… lest I should increase the grief of one who needs, as I perceive, much rather to be comforted by me;” He continues,

“…apply yourself, I beseech you, to far better and far greater consolations, in order that the cloud which, through human weakness, gathers darkness closely round your heart, may be dissipated by the words of divine authority; and, at all times, so live that you may live with your brother, since he has so died that he lives still.”

Augustine brought a loving tenderness to this woman’s sorrow, and ended his letter by reminding her that through faith, her brother need not be far from her, with her love for him remaining embedded in her heart.

Threads connect…

Henry Scott Holland was a Theologian at Oxford University and had, among many other writers, studied St. Augustine.

In 1910, he became Regius (Latin for ‘Royal’) Professor of Divinity. In May of that year King Edward VII died, and influenced by the letter from St. Augustine to Sapida, he preached a sermon containing a poem he had written.

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!”

Reaching forward…

My friend Lizzie had been touched by this piece and thought to send it to me. It came on a day when my late sister Nancy was in my thoughts and heart. It came at a time when it was exactly what I needed to read and ‘hear.’ It came, I believe, because there was a need and that need (not the specifics) was felt and answered.

It would be a stretch to suggest Augustine’s letter that so touched Holland…so touched my friend Lizzie…so touched me, had an historical purpose for the moment in time when my heart was heavy. It would NOT be a stretch to suggest when minds open themselves to be led, the God of the universe can exert His will for the betterment within the shared community of His creatures.

Sapida wrote…Augustine listened

Augustine wrote…Holland listened

Holland wrote…Lizzie listened

Lizzie wrote….

and benefit was attributed to all.

Sometimes in the apparently chaotic nature of all that is, we get glimpses of the indefinable order that comes because it seems that God watches us out of the corner of His eye to soothe the troubled soul.

Yeah, “Nancy is never far from my mind…”

- ted