After 30 Years I planted California Poppies

 

California Poppies in Washington

Hi friends! I hope this post finds you all very well and enjoying success in your lives.

It's been some time since my last post so I thought I'd start off easy. I bring you flowers. The iconic California Poppy, a botanic reminder of my time in the Golden State (1983-1994). I planted cal poppies this summer, and it's the first time I have ever had any success with them in 30 years here. I've tried seeds wild sewn, and also seeds in trays, started indoors. This year I bought two pots of starts from Sunseed Farm and despite making them hold in their pots for much longer than they might have liked, the plant took off once it was in the ground. It is literally in the hottest, driest, deadest soil in my yard. The poppies are thriving. 

The poppies have me thinking about my time in Los Angeles and the yards and gardens I had, and the gardens I visited during my decade there. Recently I decided I'm giving myself 10 years to turn this garden into something interesting. A garden is never finished I would say, it is always in need of care. The garden I am planning currently is developing and I am trying to approach it with intention and methodology, with sensitivity to native species and culture, while respecting and nurturing the land. And it must be a garden that can withstand climate change!

I just finished reading Rebecca Solnit's "Orwell's Roses" so I'm little inspired by flowers and what they mean. Earlier this year I read two books on history of art that focused solely on women. Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art by Lauren Elkin, and Katy Hessel's The Story of Art Without Men. This has been my research recently, to identify female artists to look up to, especially Canadian ones. I'm embarrassed by how few I know but I am equally pleased by who I am finding. Rebecca Belmore's work falls into that category. 

Garden Plan 2022

The biggest thing my yard, garden, property gives me, is a place of calm and meditation, the place I do my work. I am not interested in or can I even imagine a finished thing down to every plant. Like many things I am letting the whole thing evolve as it should. I'm establishing more interesting lines of sight from key spots on the property, the view from the place you first enter the clearing and the view from the living room west into the forest which currently contains too many obstacles for my liking. The years I spent living and working  here have informed what I want to look at, how the place might look and feel. I have different concerns now than I did 30 years ago when I first began.

The orange yellow poppy is warm and bold, with its impossibly delicate stem and flashy head, it survives at the roadside, and the seaside in wind that batters it, sun that feeds it. It is not a passive flower either, closing its petals to survive cooler nights. Succulent looking, its exquisite stem structure  suggests serpentine ironwork, as it stretches across the ground. 

Dad at home

My sister planted fantastic orange Marigolds along the strip of wall between dad's house and the next house. The Marigolds are huge and frothy growing in amongst strawberries, some decorative grass, Heather and this and that, that my sister pulled from here and there. It's part of the process of being at his house with him as his companions and caregivers. It's something I am incredibly proud to be able to be involved in. He is aging at home and doing very well with our gentle support. I just spent two days with him. We walk around his neighborhood, I point out plants and flowers as we go, we casually monitor progress of all that grows near our path.

Crash Course in Grief

Create a space to mourn and connect

How did you tell me? 

It came gradually. The words slow from your mouth. He is dead. Car crash. I know immediately. Suicide. You blinked, and your whole life changed. Your eyes are open, readjusting to a new reality. This boy, we were just getting to know is gone, forever at 18. Your heart is broken, mine is broken for you and for Calvin.

I bang pots making noise, so you can hear me in your room, so you know I am nearby.

I don't know how to mourn the loss of this much innocence and potential, but here I am, taking a crash-course. Getting through the first few days was key, setting a pace. We eat regularly and take quiet walks. The time crawls by. We watch animated movies. Your friends come to visit. On the third day after the death I decided to make a simple alter in our living room, a special place I could connect with my feelings about the loss of Calvin. There is a candle to light and let burn out into the night. There are 18 smooth glass stepping stones, one for each year of his short life. There is a small plate for offerings of food, and a vessel for notes of comfort, and questioning.

Grief is a mental and physical experience. I remember this from when my mother died 18 yrs ago. I know we will need time to think deeply about what has happened, so I have decided that we should observe a 49 day period of mourning. I am borrowing the time frame from a Buddhist tradition. They believe it takes these days for the soul to be reincarnated. We will take these 7 weeks to be purposeful in our grieving, and ever gentle with ourselves in these fragile times. I am determined that we can grow through this experience, that there will be something positive that comes from it. We have passed through the first week already.

A difficult farewell

I added pictures of Calvin to his alter after the Memorial today. It was wonderful to see how many friends he had and how supported his family will be. I have never felt so sad though, it is hard to see so many broken-hearted people. Among them, my one and only child. I will not rush this time. I will savor the humanness I feel. I will hold Calvin in my heart. I will speak his name. From this emotional chaos we will make order. We will make a circle around each other. We will weave this lost boy into our soft tissue. And carry him along.

See you in September

She's starting the 12th grade. Speaking strictly in cliches, I don't know where the time went. It's been interesting recently, dealing with a teen age brain while also dealing with my own changing brain. The difference in our ages is so ironic, she is in post puberty, I am in peri-menopause. She is ramping up, I am winding down. As an older mother I can see why people have kids in their twenties. We are both working to find ourselves and there are clashes and moments that leave me perplexed and worried about the future. It's a strange time. Sometimes I look at her and see this capable young woman on the cusp of her life and other times I see my 4 yr old kid screaming because I got too many steps ahead of her on the path we are both taking. It a push-me-pull-you situation, on an Olympic level. As with other stages of parenting there are moments of profound questioning and routine attitude readjustment. A constant letting go, while still holding firm.

She came home Wednesday from her first day of school and talked my ear off for almost an hour about her classes, her friends, her new teachers. It was a welcome change from the usual one word answers spoken with an attitude of contempt.

Parenting has been a challenge for my husband and I lately but we are in the home stretch and we must stick to our principles for her sake. I can see how teenagers end up out of the house. Their parents are exhausted and fed-up and the solution seems to be to kick them out. Show them what it is like to be on their on own. I am not saying we have come anywhere near that point but I can see how it happens. I see us a bunch of birds in a small nest, she is experimenting with new things all the time and we have to be the sounding boards, reflecting back to her what she needs to know but it's not always magical or even comfortable. Occasionally one of us gets a wing in the face, growing pains, space constraints and we feel like we'll fly apart or fall out of the safety of our tree. We haven't fallen yet and ruffled feathers soon settle down and smooth out and there are moments of brilliance woven into all of it.

Here she is in our campsite at Golden Ears Park. This was our 12th year there and I was struck that it might be the last one as next year she'll have graduated and be on to other things, her things. I suggested this to her and she gave me the 5 yr old face, oh mom don't be silly, we'll do this always. A part of her wants to stay this way forever, but we both know it won't.

Food for Thought

I guess it's an absolute truth that if you want something done properly you must do it yourself.  I suppose it also rings true that we are what we eat. Criticize a persons food and you might as well criticize them directly. It is also true that not everything should be taken personally. I read that in a book called The Four Agreements. It made sense to me.

In my starring role as mother to my 15 yr old daughter, my main objective is to teach her how to eat. My mother taught me and when I no longer lived with her my stepmother picked up where she left off. They were housewives, mothers of 4 and 5 and they had both been a part of the Diet for a Small Planet movement. They had also been through a war, this effects, probably more than any thing ones relationship to food. They knew about vegetables and whole grains. They baked their own bread and cooked all of our meals. We ate seasonally, my stepmother had her own butcher who she had a really tight relationship with. She cared about the quality of what we ate. As an adult when I visited my mother she still made me all the things I loved, again, it was homemade, seasoned with love and rich in wholesome comfort. Of the 8 living children these two women raised, no one was fat and we are all good cooks.

When my daughter was learning to eat whole food as a baby I remember her hugging me at the dinner table. I would give her a little bite, she would eat it up and then she would hug me. And so, a strong bond was created around nourishment. When she has been away, I tend to want to feed her up when she gets back, to get her back on track. Food is not folly, it is healthy, whole, fresh, and satisfying, designed to build her up. I can't rely on anyone else to do this for her, it is my responsibility alone, it is not a burden, it is my job and I do it willingly with love, good humor and sometimes flair.

The Food Thing

We are what we eat. Crap in crap out. My kid has been sick this year, nothing devastating but concerning in its persistence. We sought medical attention and she ended up taking 3 rounds of antibiotics and most recently she has been fighting something that was a direct result of the cure. Don't get me wrong. I like antibiotics but not too often. I take full responsibility for my kids health and last year with her entrance to high school I eased up on my death grip of what she was eating. I let her choose what she ate at school and at home somewhat, and I began to notice that she was slowly eating more and more simple carbs in the form of noodles, bread, pasta, crackers. The final straw was a few weeks ago, I have made a stir-fry and rice and I watched as she heaped on the rice and took a few carrots from the mix and that was it. A huge light bulb went on and I suddenly realized what had probably caused all the health issues we'd had in the winter that had crept into the summer and were now present in the fall. Her immune system had become compromised due to her diet. Too much sugar in her system was creating a perfect environment for bacterial infection and then the antibiotics killed off what she had left leaving her with a condition called Thrush. This is a really boring post but I need to outline this more for myself than anything. We are what we eat. Crap in crap out. This is my mantra. Right now I am working on rebuilding my daughters bacterial system. One of the main ways of doing this is to eat loads of fresh and cooked vegetables, some fermented foods and lots of yogurt. Juice is forbidden, for now. Donuts and cakes and cookies and noodles and pasta are all off the table. Whole grains are in. Sodas are out. Herbal tea with honey is in. It's a tough road but I feel strongly that one of the values I must pass on to my kid is how to eat properly for now and for life.

Her lunch today:
Roasted Turkey Sandwich on whole grain bread
Mixed veggies: tomatoes, cuke, carrots
Nut mix: almonds, raisins, a few chocolate chips
Peanut butter cookies: made with maple syrup and almond meal
Yogurt cup
Cheese and rice crackers

Housekeeping

We spent the weekend at my dad's. Summer is almost over and we have to finish up the work we started, painting some trim on his house. While he's capable of doing the work himself he is not naturally inclined in that direction. I am pretty sure my stepmother took care of all these things, doing some of the fix-it stuff herself, directing him on some jobs and hiring the rest out. She was conscious of how the house should look, he seemed oblivious but willing to do what she implored him to do. She has been away physically for over year but she stopped being able to care about these domestic details a few years before that. In some ways those last years before her stroke and fall were pleasant. She was more relaxed, less critical. Alzheimers took her need to have things just so. We were not always close. There were difficult years but I understood her and she knew it. We had a bond, ultimately she was a good mother and she and dad had a good relationship. She's everywhere in the house and I feel by helping him we are helping her too, carrying out her wishes, considering her preferences, keeping her present in a home in which she is absent. When we arrived Saturday dad was home eating his light lunch. He was wearing a huge pair of cargo pants, filthy and cinched around his waist, his now narrow hips no longer a match for a widening waist-band. I asked him if he maybe needed me to go with him to get some new pants for fall. I made a joke about back to school shopping but he's wary of me and my helpful hints about appearance and grooming practices. I have to tread lightly. I think of my stepmother and how she would have handled him and his over-sized pants. They would have simply disappeared in the laundry one day, gone to the poor, or the compost if they had no trace of wear left in them. She felt strongly that even the poor had standards. He wore shorts the next day and assured me that he has clothes to wear and we discussed wearing a greater percentage of them. This seemed to please him. Mark did some painting and I washed dishes and wiped up crumbs. I could go crazy cleaning the house but the cleaning woman had just been there so it felt pretty okay, considering. On Sunday we took a long walk punctuated with pie and coffee. We walked to Pt Grey Road and watched a race of Lasers in the bay. The single sails were so pretty moving together as a group gently changing shape as their sailors adjusted their trim and direction as they passed the race markers. It was hot and the dogs panted as we sat on a little knoll and watched the boats finish their heats and then begin again.

Exercise

I'm not writing much these days so I thought I would bring the journal here for a bit and see what happens. It's Monday, a day of clarity, or a few hours of clarity at least. I make my lists on Sunday, dreaming in the car on the way back from the city about what I can do better this coming week, thinking a lot about my dad who we have just seen. He is in good form and I am more relaxed around him these days. Why oh why are you not completely relaxed around your own father? I am not sure. I want him to like me and respect me, I don't see it all as unconditional. The work we are doing at his house is coming along, I think he's glad we're doing it. He seems happy to have us there now and then. I try not to boss him too much. I try not to vacuum each and every time I visit. That's progress I guess. I saw Molly (my stepmother) on Sunday at Banfield, it's a depressing place but there are no other options, her state is depressing but she did recognize me and spoke my name immediately, she even wanted to say something about my new hair color but the words got garbled. Dad was sweet with her, telling her how beautiful she looked. I was odd, I've never heard him be that effusive with her but it was genuine and it seemed to cheer her up. She's sad. This current reality of hers is not one she ever would have chosen, living in public, letting others care for her body, dress her, apply her lipstick. The women who care for her are all saints. Why would anyone choose this work, choose to care for people who cannot care for themselves and in some case are very angry about the care. Molly is sedate. She is prone to outbursts of emotion. She always has been and that made me wary of her when she was well. These days I can see her frailty, her anguish and confusion. She seems to know what is going on but is powerless to control it. She doesn't ask to go home, does she even know anymore that home exists. Dad goes to see her most days, they have their little moments, he likes to make her laugh but I see what he is missing too. She adored him, and fussed over him, cared for him for years and now he is left with this current scenario and I worry about him feeling lonely at home. I hate to think about the loss of intimacy with Mark, I try to imagine us all old and creaky snuggling up as we do our bony legs covered in tissue paper skin in place of our once full flesh. My dad's legs are so thin and veiny now, I noticed that the other day. My concentration is blown, that's all for now.

Stream of Consciousness

Dead herbs on my father's deck.

The pace of summer is rapid, like a fast dance. I am dancing through forests and wetlands but not so much along my own beloved road. I am never without a plastic cooler of some sort filled with food and drink. We must transport food and beverages from one place to another, we eat less but drink more during this season of rapid movement, of endless comings and goings.

We camped last weekend near Mt St Helen's at the edge of Silver Lake. The woods were thick with smoke from campfires and the occasional waft of septic off-gas, an invisible turd lingering gently above us. I made a point of getting us to water during the heat of the day and we were directed to a spot on the Touttle River. This river that was famously a sudden outlet for the water and debris blasted off the side of the mountain that May day in 1981. Considering that, the water was harmlessly shallow with some current, amber in color and filled with tiny creatures, swimmers, skimmers, lurkers. I waded up the little river and floated back down a few times letting the water take me with it. I found a flat rock jutting up out of the flow and sat there, the river running past me without stop, and spent some time surveying the other river seekers. I find it fascinating how people behave in nature. To me it is a deeply spiritual activity and should be done quietly with a humble posture and without excessive litter. Not everyone shares my opinion.

My daughter turned 15 this week without a lot of fanfare. I was never great at creating the super-fantastic birthday bash, and this year I bought her books for presents. Books! On the day of her birthday I played chauffeur and took her and couple of friends to the movies. We had pizza afterwards but only one girl slept over and on the way home the birthday girl was complaining of a sore throat. The price of too much activity. She spent a day on the couch and when she wasn't better the following day we went to the local doctor. In the car on the way back with a diagnosis of Strep she said, "I guess I am prone to throat ailments", and she is. Part of growing up is getting to know the limits of your body.

Today I am cleaning my father's kitchen and in the midst of the crumbs and coffee grounds and ant-traps I found myself sinking into the meditation of the work. I am here in a place maybe I don't want to be right this minute but I am here so I will do this work and relax into the moment. I haven't walked for the past few days and I worry about how missing the active meditation of walking will affect me. My schedule has not allowed for the walk the past several days, the kid getting sick, weekend trips, visits with friends. I jumped on my trampoline for 20 minutes on Thursday, that seemed good but I crave the walk.

The weather continues to be perfect, cooling just a little as we drift past the solstice. It's a whole month now. I am outdoors mostly or if I am in, the doors and windows are all open. The grass is just starting to turn brown, and like I said, it's a fast dance this summertime thing and dry grass signals where we are in the cycle. With that in mind we are compelled to get out into the sun, into nature and jump in up to our knees to receive the glory of it all. So that is where I am at, just drinking it all in every chance I get while still working away in a semi disciplined way.

A long silence

The weather has been mixed. The bees are frantic in the kiwi vines above the path to my office. I can hear them buzzing furiously as I pass. They are oblivious to the dense clouds shifting back and forth in the sky, time is of the essence as the blossoms fall like snow at my feet. One minute glorious sun the next, atomic darkness. My pupils are sore from all the adjusting. The bees are charged.

I am trying to keep up with my integrated approach to my work keeping my guilt about certain activities at bay. I have a little chant, take breaks, take care of yourself, rest, work, repeat. Overall my energy to work has been good. I have gone from light work to almost every client I have every known contacting me seemingly overnight. I am sticking to my routine which seems to hold me together and I am making lists like a fiend and following them. I am not letting my mind go wild which seems counterintuitive but the result is calming. I stick to the structure of my day and complete the items on the list. I am talking to people, I have made more phone calls this last month than I made all last year. I can hear a change in my voice. I feel as though the blog has suffered because I feel well, but that is a twisted notion. I am writing now, that is positive.

Sons of Norway, Mission BC Vintage Trailer Meet

(long pause)

I didn't finish this post. It has been sitting here in a tab on my laptop. What have I been doing? What haven't I been doing? Writing is the main thing I haven't been doing. But the good thing is that I am busy, doing things, feeling well. School is out and so we are gliding into summer which for me means working diligently but also sliding in more recreational activities. When the weather is fine, one must get out.

We just spent 3 days on the Coast helping a family member manage his life. It wasn't so bad. There was the usual tension between Mark and his siblings when this work has to be done but they have agreed to do it, and so they do it willingly. No matter where you are in life there is the potential to be someone's caretaker or at least take part in the care of another human being. Our helpee lives in a small trailer park near a creek on the gorgeous Sunshine Coast. Whenever I visit there I imagine what it would be like, how one could arrange a minimal space and make it pleasant. Many of the residents have sweet little set-ups, making the best of where they are. Others are a little less polished or welcoming but the world is full of all types. Gardeners and hoarders, smokers and the deranged. We all have to end up somewhere and I like to imagine various possibilities so that if I ended up in a 16ft travel trailer with a joey-shack-sunroom and a sidewalk scooter I'd be okay with it. There are many ways to live, the point is to be happy with where you are and make it the best, for you.

So the summer means mobility and that means I have to get used to working everywhere because there is work that needs to be done. It's fine, it's better than fine. The routine of work keeps me sane and money keeps me from being a burden, and doing it in different places is freeing.

The Quiet Room

In the quiet room there is the sound of the oxygen pump and Mark mistakes it for the pattern of Eddy's breathing and worries it is slowing down. We stand around Eddy's bed and pet him, his chest and legs, and his head. Occasionally Mark pets his cheek. At first we don't know what to say and the nurses are there swabbing out his mouth and turning him in the bed and then realizing they need to change his gown that is wet with sweat they ask us to step out and we do. In the common area there is a dog lingering between the water dispenser and an open office and a man comes out and goes in and the dog changes from bored to attentive and then back to bored. People wheel by in wheelchairs wearing socks with grippy pads. Some people sit listening to music, some people just stare. A woman I saw crying at one of the many dining tables one day is today folding clothes, over and over. We go back into the quiet room and continue our petting and stroking and quiet weeping. We talk over Eddy and to Eddy and around Eddy and eventually we put on music and we all sit down and forget about Eddy and then we take turns looking over at him. From where I am sitting I can see his pulse in his neck expanding and contracting against the white white pillow. The lights are low in the quiet room and the decor makes it seem like you are in a cottage at the beach, in Greece. If you were on morphine this would all be believable. You could easily tune out the pumping sound of the oxygen and the sound of the fan and all the sounds coming from the front desk of this vast building filled with other afflicted humans who can no longer care for themselves. You could focus instead on the voices of the people you loved most in this world even if you had no ability to understand what anyone was saying, the pumping sound might register as waves lapping on a distant shore. No one asks questions about how long it will be until we arrive at the place we are all going and the day passes and we come and go from the quiet room, and later in the evening after we have all gone home, Eddy dies. And that is where we are now. This is the day that we knew was coming but we didn't know how and we didn't know when and yet here we are doing exactly what we knew we would need to do.

Saturday with the folks

I guess it's in the air. Everyone's parents are getting old, failing and decrepit. Our roles as parents and children are crossing over one another at the dividing line. We make suggestions and come up with solutions, shouting them from where we stand, our minds and bodies still keeping pace, mostly. Saturdays we visit Eddy first, now in care, it's depressing. We stay a shamefully short amount of time, but how long can you sit watching someone sleep? We move west to the city and see my dad, now 84 and his wife. My parents I say and pause, my mother is dead. My stepmother, now my only female parent has Alzheimers or some other dementia-like disease, and my father are the parents of record. They are one unit, bound tighter now that she is dependent on him entirely and he is more dependent on us, our open arms, palms raised up offering help with anything, everything. We eat lunch with them, bake cookies, clean up here and there. We are jovial and encouraging, helping her with the words she can no longer connect with, seeing that he is not becoming overwhelmed with this new position of care giving he has been thrust into. After a time we go outside with him discreetly and discuss things that need to be discussed while the dogs pull and sniff around the block that surrounds the house, circumnavigating the island of their despair. On the way home we stop to see Mark's mother who is the best off of all of them fiercely independent still and able to mother us a little which feels like a relief because we are not ready to cut loose that generational buffer between us and our own eventual demise. At night I dream again and again of my mother and relive her illness, she is well and then not well and then dead again and I forget how it happened but I am grateful she comes to visit me and I suppose it will be this way with all of them and then me and on and on.

Episode

It was 45 minutes before he began to be responsive. We ate our hamburgers because we didn't know what else to do and they were cooked. One of us would get up and check on him periodically. The time passes slowly and initially you are calm and do what has worked in the past, but then more time passes and we began to think maybe this is it, this is how it ends but you don't stop yet, you keep reacting just in case. We were moving around the house not really talking to one another but in our minds we were both concocting strategies for what to do. Eventually the ER was the answer and that's where Mark took him, only by the time we called an ambulance and arranged to meet them just inside the Canadian border he was coming around, nicely. He squeezed my hand when I asked him to but would not speak. In the car as they pulled out of the driveway I waved at Eddy and he waved back, like nothing was wrong. He was fine but the trip to the emergency could not be aborted and so Mark kept on, making up for the other times when we did not take him perhaps. At midnight they were back home and we were there to meet them, having cleaned up the dinner dishes and crossed the border into Canada, with the dogs and everything else.

At the doctor today Eddy sits looking down and we talk about him like he isn't there, but he is there. He looks mad at times, and scared at other times. He says very little or nothing. We learned from the doctor that when he has one of these episodes we need to elevate his feet. This is good simple advice and it makes me feel empowered for when this happens again. Mark is not so sure and he requests a change to some different meds to try and avoid the seizure all together. We went years without any of these episodes and now they are quite frequent. His state is precarious, his circulation poor, he is slow to respond to much stimulus, he is forgetting how to eat, but he's alive. So we go along with him moment by moment, ill-equipped as we are, our resolve propping him up. It's all we can do.

Going Away

My dad and stepmother at the Reifel Wildlife Sanctuary, Westham Island BC

Have just spent a few days at my fathers house and not surprisingly woke up this morning with a raging headache, nausea and fear and anxiety rising like a raging river. It's been a few hours and I feel more normal but also tender. I had wanted to go and spend some time with the old folks to see how they're doing and now I know. I would say they are ready for some help. My dad is good for his age and my stepmother has Alzheimer's which we have known about for some time. She's mostly okay, generally cognizant but justifiably pissed off and prone to fussing. She was always this way but it's heightened now. We had some good chats over multiple glasses of wine and she seemed herself but there were moments when she would lash out and that was a bit hard to witness. My dad is not a touchy-feelie overly nurturing guy so it's hard for him to deal with her in this new and devolving state. He's used to her being capable and in charge and she is so much less that way now. I feel pretty drained after only 4 days, I can only imagine how they feel. I need to get in touch with all my siblings and report my findings, there are 8 of us between them. I am not looking forward to this but I feel like the time is right and there have not been any big crisis yet but there is certainly potential.

The good news I suppose is that when we arrived on Tuesday they were both tense and when we left they were cheerful which proves to me that they need more contact with all of us. It seems a simple solution considering the severity of what's happening.

Eddy

Holy cow. I have to make this snappy. Had so many plans to make some drawings and paintings, in particular a painting of Eddy. He is not well, he is not himself or he is a new version of himself, we're not sure. Mark has been caring for him now for close to 8yrs and we think he had a stroke some weeks ago, but he seemed to rally and we thought it was a cold and he got better in a few days but now he is slow again and he just seems glum which makes us glum too. He's near the end of the line and I think he knows enough to know that he's really confused and weak and not a player any longer, not even close. It's distressing to all of us. Because he is weak his bathing schedule has been disrupted which in purely mechanical terms is tricky. Mark had to give him a sponge bath at the kitchen counter because he would not wake up long enough to get into the shower. It's tough on everyone but toughest on Eddy. We don't take him to the doctor for these things, our approach is practical, sympathetic but also realistic. What if he had cancer? We'd probably let it go. I suppose it's palliative care that we are providing. Mark is softening with him and we talk about just meeting him where he is, going easy on our expectations of his abilities and awareness. He was better yesterday and we were able to get him through the shower. And so it goes one day at a time.

Weekend Update

It's been a tough weekend in suburbia. Eddy is deeply under the weather which is very concerning. For me it raises all sorts of issues about how long can we go on looking after him if for example he began to refuse to walk. He likely just has a common cold but even the most simple ailments in the elderly can be a big problem. His weight had gotten a bit low and we had started to get that under control when he began to slow down at the table. He forgets he is eating and stops and sits staring at his food like he has no idea what to do next. He often says this, what's next? A loaded question. His usually cheery demeanor has vanished and has been replaced by a strange look of fear and concern. He doesn't feel well and he knows this but to him it must seem more dire. He won't talk much and is slow to respond when he does which drives Mark crazy.

We took a few walks over the weekend to different places as a way to calm our tired worried nerves. We went down into the deep ravine below the powerline in Abbottsford but it was an uncomfortable place to be. It's very treed and the trail is winding, they are a few ner'-do-wells who potentially hang out there so instead of feeling relaxed I felt sort of scared and vulnerable. Probably will skip walking there in the future unless we're armed. (hah) On Sunday we went up to the Dyke which was better. I ate my samosas while Mark threw the ball for the dog at the rivers edge. We walked a good distance along the trail and it felt better but we still mostly talked about Eddy, if we got off the topic Mark brought us back with his concern, saying I hope the old guy gets better.

My feeling is that he'll be okay, he might take a little while to get back to his baseline. The tough thing is with each illness he becomes more checked out. We just have to take it as it comes, we have no plans for the future beyond the next few weeks. We'll keep Eddy home until he gets better, even the routine trips to my place can be tough because the set up there is so different. So we'll visit here a bit more often and see what happens.

Flux

Eddy asleep in the sun.

Mark started his course this weekend. It marks a new period for us. Gone are our carefree weekends for the next few months. It's okay because if I have learned anything it is that I am capable of adjusting to change. I looked after Eddy while Mark went to school and then DJ'd a wedding. The wedding was an additional complication but again, not insurmountable. We have also embarked on a new school schedule with Pearl which sees her in Everson during the week and with her dad most weekends. We are in a state of flux which can be disorienting. I could choose to be blue about the whole thing but I refuse to go there. Instead I invited my sister out for the weekend to keep me company while Mark was away. In the morning I cleaned our bedroom and took the dog for a good walk. I tended to Eddy and felt good about doing it. On Sunday Catriona and I walked for about two hours along the dyke at Mission, it was clear and warm and we had a good talk. Mark came home, beat from his weekend of schlepping equipment and doing equations. Catriona went home and we took the big red car out to do the shopping, I made dinner for the three of us while Mark slept. It felt different from the normal routine but not unpleasant. There is a stillness to this change as we all get used to the new order of things. I don't fear change anymore, I look forward to the new opportunities that arise from it.

Charm and Good Looks

We wake Eddy up early on Fridays. He goes out on a bus to an adult daycare place where he mixes with other old codgers, he gets a bath while he is there too. Often when we wake him up he is a bit confused and often thinks he is dreaming. Today he said he was just lying there and while he was willing to accept where he was he had no recollection of what he had done to get here. I told him he had done it based on charm and good looks. He said he was willing to accept that too.

Risky Business

Eddy is home and getting stronger. It is not happening by accident, Mark is really focused on Eddy's ability to get up with assistance and walk the 25 or so steps to the bathroom. At the moment he can only walk from the bathroom door to the toilet. We wheel him from his room to the bathroom door. There is risk involved in getting him up, he could fall. His skin is phyllo dough thin and his nerves are fragile, the bathroom is made of hard objects with sharp corners. Occasionally you have to take evasive action to get him to his destination. He yips and oohs, it doesn't feel good. His legs can give out, he can sort of lose interest in what is happening and can topple over. He has fallen, but not often, he has never been hurt. When he finally arrives back in his wheelchair he always thanks us for safe delivery, no matter how rough the trip.

The greater risk lies in not getting him up, letting him lose all connection to his body, forgetting to walk. All those brain pathways getting covered over like old dirt roads. There was tremendous perceived risk in assisting him through his day but we brought him home anyway and slowly he is returning to his original semi-marginal state as we hoped he would. Our commitment is renewed to keep at him, to walk and move around despite his strenuous complaints and missed synapse. Trying to keep him moving until the end, that is the goal. None of this is easy, it's heavy and it feels awkward, sometimes it's scary but generally it feels like the right thing to do.

Risk is unavoidable, the key is to know which risks you're willing to take.

Home Soon

Eddy, Mark and Luna in the Acute Elder Care Ward

We brought the dog into the ward yesterday to cheer Eddy up a bit. I am not sure if it made a dent in his glum but he did recognize her. Today he stops the antibiotics and we hope it brightens him up because he is still really bummed out. He stares at us like he wants to tell us both off with our assanine optimism. He's been doing the exercises with Mark but very grudgingly. Mark meets with a physio rep today and hopefully she can see that he does know what he's doing and the proof is in how much stronger Eddy is after the last 5 days of therapy. We have a lot of mixed feelings of course about the hospital experience but mostly we feel strongly that keeping Eddy out of care is preferable for all of us.

Hospital Stay Day 7

Eddy at the big house

Eddy has been in the hospital for a week now. He went in last Tuesday with a high fever and has been transferred to Acute Elder Care. I am trying to stay positive but it's challenging. So much of getting better depends on the sick person themselves to feel hopeful that they will recover. Eddy is not happy, he is not speaking much to us and I am reading his mood as angry and fearful. His dementia keeps him in the present so it's hard for him to recall the information about the infection he has. He can't look back at the days and see that he is feeling better as we can. He just feels the way he feels in the moment and he can't feel great. He still has a slight temperature but is off the intravenous medication. Other smaller problems are developing as well as a result of being bedridden.

We found out a few days into his stay that his own Doctor does not have hospital privileges so we have had to rely on the ward Doctor's and RN's for answers on his condition and it's all been vague and frustrating. Test results take time, the infection spread to his blood and we are not sure where it started, was it the urinary tract or the lungs. He is getting good care but I wish he was home in his room where the dog could lick his hand and he could look at his maps and pictures as he faded in and out. Instead he is in a detail-less sterile room mostly on his own, wondering why he is there and worrying about whether he will ever leave.