trying to find logic where there is none

I'm listening to my sister talk to her husband about the problems we are encountering with out mother. She celebrated her 85th birthday tonight and for her that was a milestone. For us, the situation with her (and her refusal to yield when she can no longer function at certain levels) is a millstone around both of our necks. We can rationalize about how she can't help what is happening to her mentally or emotionally. We can use logic to explain the situation to ourselves. We can set goals of tolerance, forebearance, charity, etc., but when it comes to the reality of the situation, it comes down to one, main theme--when an individual's logic goes (and their need to be in total control stays), everyone connected to that individual pays a big price. It doesn't matter what excuses we verbalize about why she does or doesn't do something. It doesn't matter how we view the situation and from what angle. The result is still the same. We are dealing with someone who will not listen, will not allow others to help her when she is making mistakes that others (that would be my sister and me) will have to rectify, clean up, resolve, counter. We are trying to find logic and help her to find logic in her decision making (or lack thereof), to leave the world of denial and recognize the reality of her life in the here and now, and we just can't help her to rediscover it to bring some sense of order to her confused view and approach to life. It is like trying to explain to someone why red should not be his or her choice of color while working in a ring full of bulls, when he or she insists that red is a great color, a favorite color, and that everything will be fine. We scurry out of the ring hoping we won't be gored... It is a scene from a novel or an old movie, not something we want to experience in our lives, but experience it we are. Ole!

Becoming the child...

When a parent begins to lose perspective, memory--both long- and short-term, and logic, the frustration level involved in this excruciating experience exceeds that parent's grasp. The child then becomes the parent as the parent regresses, permanently, into a second childhood that will last until the final bell rings. There is no choice, no "what do you think", "do you want to tackle this" offered beforehand to the child who is called to step in as surrogate parent. This switching of roles doesn't happen quickly, unexpectedly. It is gradual and the signs are there, they are always there. We may just miss them, ignore them, deny them, but they are there and they march forward in time--one or two at a time and then in multiples. They become more pronounced over time and the choice for the child-soon-to-be-parent is to run screaming from the room or to accept the role as gracefully as possible. The options are limited. The requirements are limiting.

The hardest part of taking on this parental role is that all the techniques that worked for your own children--time outs, removal of privileges, sending a child to his or her room, isolation from the family until manners/courtesy or other civilities were re-instated by the child, reminders about what is and isn't appropriate--do not work. Memory is slippery in your "child" and what is requested, asked, demanded in one moment may not make it into the next. Almost everything is new and repetition is the order of the day. Patience is a virtue that must be cultivated and as the new "parent" you must let go of all the old memories of how you or other family members were treated by this parent, all the pronouncements must be forgiven, all the demands that were once required for living are no longer. The parent will slowly take off the clothing of the mature adult and will replace it with the emotional and mental pinafores or knickers, Mary Jane shoes or sandals befitting a young child.

Nothing you read or observe or hear about from friends, family, on TV, in the movies, orfrom the sagest professionals can prepare you for being placed in this position. It is difficult to imagine and more difficult to accept as reality. A person who was once vital and intelligent and with whom you have held countless conversations (and arguments) will disappear before your very eyes. And it isn't magic, because magic has a mystical, spell-binding, entertainment quality, and having a parent trade roles with you has none of that. You think you will "get used to it" over time, but you never truly do. It is always puzzling. It is always disconcerting. It is always a skewed view of the world as you knew it. And when a parent cum child has a lucid period, the inevitable regression becomes more difficult to accept when it returns...and it always returns. Dementia and Alzheimer's are heavy sounding medical terms and what they describe is a heavy burden for both the parent slipping away and for the child who watches, unable to stop the process and feeling guilty for sometimes wishing it would speed up when the heaviness of carrying this burden becomes its own burden--one that seems to put its full weight on your heart and soul.

Parents give us life. Most of them do their best to teach us how to live good lives and be productive citizens of our communities and families. When they reach the no-turning-back phase of their lives, it is our turn to give them as much life as we possibly can and to teach them (and our own children) how to live as good a life as possible within the limitations of their new "community"--the ever-diminishing world of the elderly. We must keep the good memories as close as possible to offset the sad ones and the new, fleeting ones should be held as delicate treasures--knowing that they are rare and will soon disappear altogether. We must live for the brief moments, because we know that it is in these moments that we will find the true meaning of a life.

Friday ain't what it used to be...

For the first time in several years, I'm not ready to shout, "Woohoo, it's Friday!" as we approach the end of Thursday. I am now working on my own and so I set my own schedule and pace and feel "in control"--well except for my panty hose rolling south when I stand, sit or walk. It's a good feeling to be self-directed, although I occasionally get a little dizzy and lose my direction altogether. But I'm the only one around, and I don't call attention to my foibles. They do that all by themselves. So, circling back to Friday, tomorrow just won't be what it's always been--a day to celebrate and declare the start of the weekend because I'm so ready to be off work. And working for myself, I work just as many hours, even longer some days, because I don't have to. And that's the point. I want to do my work just for the sake of doing it and feeling satisfied with the effort, not because someone tells me I must. Who knows how long this situation will last, but while it does, I'm relishing every moment, even Fridays.

My fans demand it...

I've let 4 days go by without stepping on to my soapbox and proclaiming (to almost no one) what I'm thinking about or how I see the world. Okay, who just said, "Who cares?"

My fans, well, actually just my youngest son, are prodding me to blog more frequently than I have in the recent past. It's so hard to be in demand...

Topic for today is "Why the Saturday Night Bath Tradition Died". For many years, during the 1800s and into the early 1900s, people only bathed about once a week. Perfume companies did a booming business and people all smelled, so no one knew the difference. Then the population of the country started to increase and people spent more time in each other's company and some clever person invented (or re-invented, because the Romans, and other ancient civilizations had it and used to take frequent baths) indoor plumbing. Obviously a smattering of individuals started bathing more frequently and they smelled good. Those who didn't bathe as often stood out in a crowd--literally. Peer pressure, a continuation of the population growth and the invention of Irish Spring made it mandatory that everyone bathe regularly. Shampoos and conditioners came along, making hair "bathing" a regular hygiene activity as well, and, then the loofa, the nylon scrubby poof, shower gels and the like made taking a bath or shower a big deal and a big industry for the likes of Colgate-Palmolive and Procter and Gamble. Politicians and economists spoke in favor of boosting the GNP by buying products from these and other companies, and that's why the Saturday night bath tradition died or was embellished and expanded to include every night of the week. The end.

That happened when?

Oh my goodness. It's been five days since my last blog. Do you know the eternal consequences of such a lapse in blogginity? Me either. The end.

Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?

Now who would want to use a food that is grey and has a last name that is, well, a little gross sounding? Most adults have surpassed the potty association with food and those who don't probably don't live at the level requiring French mustard. The name makes for an interesting television commercial and is somewhat snobbily amusing, but after the guy rolls his Rolls' window down and asks the question, it's time to watch a Twinkie or Chef Boyardee ad. Those are items to which most of us can relate and which we will probably eat lots of in our time. Notice that those snooty Grey Poupon ads aren't around anymore although the condiment by that name is still on the shelves of the local grocery stores.

This leads me to characters or situations in advertising that are humorous or clever. They are humorous or clever because they are shown to us in short snippets and, with our attention spans growing ever smaller by the day, we need the short and sweet or short and funny. We like the quick "hit" and run of a zippy little ad with its funny ideas and people. We sometimes even remember the name of the product, which makes Madison Avenue types feel very happy as they waddle off to the bank with pockets full of money from the companies that hired them to create a desire among the American public to buy, buy, buy their products.

This leads me to the bizarre concept that, because we might find a character or situation clever, amusing, or even ha-ha funny in an ad, that we would want to have that same situation or character in a half-hour comedy. To wit, the cavemen of GEICO. They now have a full-blown series on TV based on their popularity in the ads written to convince all of us to buy GEICO because it's owned and operated by people who make fun of cavemen, but show them as intelligent and sensitive beings. A little of this "genre" goes a very long way. I tuned into the show for a few minutes last night and thought I was watching a rather long version of a GEICO commercial, but no one talked about insurance, and there weren't any logos on the screen that linked the cavemen with GEICO (perhaps this is where the theory of a missing link comes in--sorry, I couldn't resist). Maybe somewhere, someone was laughing uproariously at this new comedic TV fare, but I'm thinking probably not. What was clever and had a unique twist in an ad became, pardon the expression, a Neanderthal in a full length exposure. I wasn't planning on buying GEICO insurance based on the series of caveman ads and I am not planning on watching the "spinoff" unless GEICO offers a year of free insurance for the first 20,000 people who tune in, and I am one of them.