Where Did I Get This Jacket?

        Sad moment. 

Shopping street Passeig de Gràcia by Tokyographer on Flickr CC

        One of our favorite travel stories has long been one from back in the mid-90s when he traveled to Barcelona with a school-sponsored group but without me.  There were a few other adults accompanying the students.  One day he went out with the older couple and stopped into a leather store.  There he decided to purchase a beautiful black jacket of very soft, supple leather.  It cost $400.  The female member of the heterosexual married couple then chided him for purchasing such an expensive item without asking his wife for permission.
        Oi vey.  When he got home and told me that story (after giving me the black leather purse he'd purchased in the same store), we laughed and laughed.  The assumption of the wife that we were the same kind of married people as they got to both of us.  We have never had to check in with each other on personal purchases.  We laughed about this many times.
        Well yesterday when we took the dogs out for their afternoon walk, he put on his beautiful, soft leather jacket.  We'd recently moved it from the far side of the entryway closet to the center.  It looked so much better over his giant old black sweater than the turquoise jacket he's been wearing.  I told him how good it looked. 
        And then he asked, "Where did I get this jacket?"
       

It's OK that You're Not OK

My therapist recommended this book by Megan Devine.  It's about "Meeting grief and loss in a culture that doesn't understand."  Ms. Devine lost her young husband to drowning completely unexpectedly. She writes from her own awful experience and that of others who have attended her grief and writing classes. The focus of her book is on accepting grief as a part of existence and not trying to make it "go away."  It has good information about living with grief and being with the grief of others.  For my next collection of posts, I'll be responding to some of the "tasks" Ms. Devine gives to her readers next to the heading, "try this."  The first one of these is about the "positive" comments that friends of the grief-stricken may offer.

"The Second Half of the Sentence
For each of these familiar comforting statements add the phrase 'so stop feeling so bad.'
At least you had her for as long as you did [so stop feeling so bad].
He died doing something he loved [so stop feeling so bad].
You can always have another child [so stop feeling so bad]."

If you cringe or feel angry when friends and family try to comfort you, it's because you hear the second half of that sentence, even when they don't say it out loud. . . . To feel truly comforted by someone, you need to feel heard in your pain.  You need the reality of your loss reflected back to you -- not diminished, not diluted."  (p. 21)

Dementia carers carry a mix of anticipatory grief (because dementias are usually a terminal diagnosis) and complicated grief (the demented one is both here and not here).  Sometimes well-meaning friends respond to our statements about the losses of our loved one by saying something like, "I'm forgetful myself" or "I'd like to forget my bills, too [so don't feel so bad]."

What this sounds like to us is, "I'm forgetful myself [so stop feeling so bad]."  "I'd like to forget my bills, too [so don't feel so bad].

Ms. Devine also offers workshops from her grief website.

Senile Penile Delinquent

Oy vey.

I did not tell him that he had a doctor's appointment until this morning, although it was listed on two wall calendars.  I knew that if he had more than one day there would be worries and upset.  So I told him this morning when he wandered out in his nightshirt to say good morning to me and the dogs.

After he got up the second time and got dressed (very nicely -- blue and green striped shirt under a pink sweater) he came and sat down next to me at the breakfast bar where I was writing checks for our estimated taxes.  This was odd and I was sure I knew what he was going to say and he said it.

Sandy Millar on Unsplash

"I have an idea -- let's cancel the doctor's appointment.  I know why I bled.  It was because I masturbated too hard."

I calmly said, "No, I'm not going to do that.  I know you hate doctors.  I know that you feel afraid.  But Dr. Thakur wanted you to see a urologist and I want to follow her directions.  I care about you and love you."

Well, he wasn't happy, but we got out to the Summit Group Urology shortly after noon.  I remembered to bring my POA paperwork and I did my best to fill out all the medical history forms, what I could remember of them.

And, as I thought would happen, he was loud with everyone.  With the physician's assistant, at one point he told her he couldn't hear her and then when she spoke up he raised his voice and said back to her what she had said.  When Doctor Baker came in he managed to insult her by saying that doctors just wanted to perform procedures in order to make money.  I was mouthing "sorry, sorry" at her as he was talking.

Mana5280 on Unsplash

Sadly, I don't think she had a lot of experience with folks with dementia as she tried to use logic with him saying that because of his phimosis she couldn't see if he had a lesion that had produced the blood on the sheets (our purpose for being there).  She said that if she didn't perform either circumcision or a dorsal slit she wasn't able to tell us why he had bled.  (I tried to make a joke here asking if they had a mohel on staff.)  He was very loud about not wanting to go under the knife.  She tried to scare/reason with him by saying that she would rather see him in her office before an emergency that might really put him in the emergency room.  He once again said something like the trouble with doctors is that they want to perform these new procedures and she said it was hardly a new procedure and that she had performed it many times.  (Once again -- reasoning.  It just don't work.)  As a person sensitive to nonverbal cues, I could observe/feel her irritation rising to meet his (she was pretty steely) though she kept her voice calm and said that she respected his decision. She was also kind when she helped him pull up his undies.

And that was that.  We paid nothing.

I was actually most upset when I found out that his weight is down to 130 but as my friend Stacey reminded me last night, losing interest in food is one of the steps of the body getting ready for death.  It's a natural process.

A Dementia Murder/Suicide

From December 29, 2019 New York Times story by Corina Knoll

It is very hard for many dementia carers to reach out to friends.  It's certainly been a challenge for me.  It seems sometimes like just keeping myself from falling into utter despair so that I can continue caregiving is all I can do.  But I keep at it, reminding people how much I need them when I have the energy to do so.  As I noted in a previous post, I have addiction issues around MaryJane and I fall into the recovery/relapse.  When I get high, I don't mind people forgetting me.  But I also fail to reach out when I'm high.
The result of not reaching out can be found in this story in the New York Times about Richard and Alma Shaver.  They were married for 60 years.  She got Alzheimer's and in spite of all the advice and offers of help from their children and friends, he refused to allow people into their lives:

When his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a few years ago, Mr. Shaver avoided discussing it and grew evasive about the future. He dismissed offers of help and suggestions that he hire a home health aide. His daughter Karen McDonald wanted to buy him a home near her. He declined."  (Corina Knoll, Dec. 29, 2019)

Then, at age 79, Richard shot his beloved wife and himself.

If dementia has any theological purpose (if anything has any theological purpose), it's the production of compassion and community around the demented.  

Word of Wisdom to caregivers:  reach out, reach out, reach out.