Author Archives: Janell

Daddy Tuesday

03 Tuesday Nov 2009

Posted by in Life at Home

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“There’s no time to lose, I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams
And you will lose your mind.
Ain’t life unkind?
Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I’m gonna miss you.”
— Ruby Tuesday, The Rolling Stones

The heart of every Tuesday belongs to Daddy.

The 1957 Model -- Me & Dad

Our visits begin with a stop in Norman to pickup my brother Jon.  It helps to have a reality check for visits with Daddy;  Jon is mine and I hope I’m his.

Even before we’re out of the Norman city limits, we begin to quiz one another about what lies ahead of us; which Daddy will we see at the end of today’s journey?  Will today be a good day, or one not-so-good like last Tuesday?

On good days, Daddy knows we are there.  On a bad day, who can say what Daddy knows?  He sleeps through our visit, oblivious of worldly cares or visitors.  But for our own peace of mind, we might as well not be there;  I’m pretty sure Dad would be none the wiser.  Of course, I realize that what I call bad days may not be from Daddy’s perspective.   In reality, the bad days may be those when Dad’s totally alert to his surroundings and his own diminishment.

By all counts, today was a good day.  So good that Daddy did not want it to end.  Jon and I are ‘on’ to Dad’s delaying tactics — instead of a child who needs a drink of water at bedtime, Daddy’s ploy is that he needs to tell us something important.  This can eat up quite a bit of time for one who can’t communicate.  It took five long minutes to realize Dad was asking for an ink pen to write with.  Thirty minutes later, after many false starts, we still had no idea of Daddy’s urgent message.  All Dad could write was “How does….?”, “How does…?”

blog_09_1103_3On days like today, Daddy is a scratched record stuck in a groove.  So I reach out to pull Daddy and his message out of the dark oblivion.   “How does what…. Daddy?  Give us a noun please.”  We never did get that noun out of Daddy; it never saw the light of day.  Whether there was really a message in Dad’s mind or not, we’ll never really know.

However, this we know for sure:  Tomorrow is Larry’s 79th birthday.  Daddy and Larry share a room; and more than that, I learned today that Larry is Daddy’s ‘go-to’ person when we’re not there.  Larry greeted us today with news that Daddy has been without his television remote for the last two days.  Especially now, at this stage in Daddy’s life, television is everything to Daddy.  I didn’t even sit down.  I searched the room one last time;  and as I wondered what we would have done without Larry’s help, I suddenly remembered Christi telling me about Larry’s birthday.

“Larry, is there anything I can pick up for you at Wal-Mart?”
“No, thank you.”
“A book or magazine maybe?”
“No, thank you.”

I had hoped Larry would voice some need; some small want that would fit into a Wal-Mart bag.  But no; like Daddy, Larry is a man of few needs and wants.  In the end, I settled for a nice birthday card; and after Daddy, Jon and I signed it, I handed it to Larry, wishing him a happy birthday tomorrow.

You’d think I’d done something wonderful.  Larry smiled real big, said thank you and immediately opened the envelope to get to the prized card inside.  As I looked on, I told Larry if he EVER needed anything from Wal-Mart on a Tuesday, he could count on me.

Someday I hope Larry will need to redeem my offer.  Not because I can ever repay Larry for his kindness to Daddy.  But just because I’d like to do something kind for this kind man who has been unable to walk for twenty years.  Larry shares his voice with Daddy.  I offer to share my legs with Larry.  Not exactly quid pro quo.  But the kind thing to do when, as the Rolling Stones sing, “life grows unkind.”

Happy Birthday Larry.

 

Civil War Daffodils

02 Monday Nov 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, Mesta Park, The Great Outdoors

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Empress

Empress Daffodil, 1869

There are so many outside chores this time of year, it’s easy to get out of focus.

I go out to spread a new layer of fresh mulch to remember the need to plant my new Daffodil bulbs.  I plant the bulbs to remember the desire to  transplant my tender herbs into containers; when freezing temperatures hit, I plan to move my herbs to the basement so I can continue to use them for winter cooking .  So I get that done to notice the leaf debris nesting under the shrubs and perennials.  I clean up the leaves to remember my desire to sow fall seeds, like Poppies and Larkspur and Delphinium.  And by the time I finally get to the mulch, it’s almost too dark to spread it.  Daylight Savings Time is spent.

This morning, rather than continue with my backyard mulching project, I decided to shift gears and head out to the front to rake leaves.  Our old neighborhood is full of tall deciduous trees — Sycamores, Elms, Sweetgums and Oaks — and right now, it’s the season of raining leaves.  If I don’t rake, the leaf cover can suffocate Cinderella’s fescue lawn.  So today I’ve raked 390 gallons of leaves!  And we still have a good four more weeks of leaf fall with another 1000 gallons of leaves. I should be in shape in time for winter.  

In the meantime — terribly out of shape and with the last two day’s work — I’m exhausted.  So after deciding to call it ‘quits’ for today, I let myself  into the back yard to put up the leaf blower.  I take a few steps up the driveway and run straight into one of my brand new daffodils  —  one of  three I planted yesterday afternoon — sitting on the driveway, naked and alone.  Left for dead.

However, to say Daffodil doesn’t quite tell the whole story.  This Daffodil is no regular big box store bulb.  I have those too. They were not disturbed.  No, the bulb I found sitting on the driveway was a rare Empress Daffodil, —  a plant introduced shortly after the Civil War  —  one of this year’s garden splurges that I ordered from Old House Gardens.0708CatalogThumb

I surmise Cosmo (my Holy Terror who’s been known to dig holes in the garden) was my Daffodil tomb raider.  And knowing Terriers as I do, I know that there’s no use beginning  a civil war that can’t be won.  So I pick up my little bulb, and with freshly manicured nails, but without gardening gloves, I quickly dig a new hole for my rare little beauty. 

For now, the little Empress is safe and sound from Scottie attacks.  And with luck, she’ll stay that way and I’ll not see my rare Daffodil again until it’s time for Spring’s resurrection.  If only Cosmo will turn over a new leaf and become a patient gardener.

Somedays, I do feel like I live in a cartoon. 

All Saints Day

01 Sunday Nov 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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In the quiet of a Sunday morning, after reading a few selections of the Daily Office, I settled into the pages of May Sarton’s book, Plant Dreaming Deep.  This particular book records the personal story of how, at age 46, Sarton came to own her first home in Nelson, New Hampshire.   I open to chapter one then glance at the title:  “The Ancestor Comes Home”.  It is a hint of grace that this chapter should set the table for All Saints Day so perfectly.

All Saints -- Granddad, Granny, Mom, Dad, Papa & Papageorge

I love May Sarton’s writing — her prose is beautiful, her memories hold power, and her angst over indecision is eerily familiar.  But as I enter Sarton’s world, I find I have more in common with Sarton than a shared angst over decisions.  She unwinds a few frames from the days of her life to tell  how she lost both parents by the time she had reached middle age, one in a lingering death and one in the space of hours.   My parents seem destined for this same divide and conquer method themselves; Mom is already gone, felled like Sarton’s great oak father, while Dad is withering on the vine like Sarton’s mother.

The deaths of Sarton’s parents set in motion the dismantling of her parent’s life.  And without any plan to do so, my thoughts immediately turn to my younger sister.  Christi has been living in the shadow of this reality for the last two months, as she has begun to take stock of my parent’s household and make plans for its destiny, whether it be landfill or another’s lucky home.  Sarton’s words about her death rendered event echo in the chambers of my own heart, just as they will soon echo in the vacant house that was my parent’s home.

“…I flew back through that long day to a house that was no longer home.  It was all sudden, violent, and terrible.  Within a week the house had been sold, and within two months dismantled, the books gone, everything torn apart of the fabric of my parents’ lives together.  I went through those months like a person in a dream, hardly conscious, making decisions because they had to be made.”

Christi too is “making decisions because they have to be made.”  However, I’m very grateful that my sister moves at a slower pace than Sarton, even as each passing day makes more clear that Daddy will never leave the nursing home to return to his home on the hill.  That’s our reality in a hard nutshell.  And of course the reality has always been there, keeping us company, nudging us toward recognition, in hopes that we might see IT for the truth it is and name it into existence.  I’ve never thought these thoughts before — that the hardest part of reality is its mere acceptance.

Last June, when Dad was a new and (so I then thought) temporary resident of the nursing home, I looked Daddy in the eye and told him he was a saint.  Daddy was surprised at my words.  Daddy knew he wasn’t perfect and even in his demented state, Daddy knew I knew this too.  So I went on.  “Daddy, you’re a saint not because your perfect.  You’re a saint because your real.”  And as soon as I spoke these words, I realized their truth, that they explained so much about who I am and what I hold most dear.

Dressing up in a Halloween costume of pretense and assumed identity is fun.  But it’s when the masks come off that the beauty and truth of a person is revealed.  For far too many, the masks stay on until death do it part.  But for others, it happens inch by inch.  We see these as the Mother Teresa’s of our world.    But whether alive or dead, we all become saints sooner or later.  We enter sainthood by owing — accepting the reality — of our own imperfect truth — our own imperfect humanity.  And when we no longer pretend to be other than who we really are — when our eyes open to our own beautiful brokeness —  we become just like Daddy.