Slow Mary

On March 21, 2020 my employer asked all of us to work from home due to the coronavirus.  I was a bit surprised, because I am the receptionist, but we had already started to keep the door locked at all time, so no one could enter the offices.  As it turned out I did not have the internet service level required to support the telephone system, so on April 2 I returned to the office, and have been in the office every week day since that day.

To get to work I drive approximately 50 miles down the I-90 Illinois Toll Road.  This toll road is 3 lanes in each direction for the entirety of my trip. 

I have come to “know” some of my fellow travelers… most noticeable is one woman I call “Slow Mary”.  Slow Mary drives a grey minivan, with a “Q” in the license plate digits. I don’t know why, but Slow Mary goes only about 55 miles an hour.  All vehicles wizz on by her, as she plods along. Every other vehicle on the toll road is going more than 65mph, a few of us are doing at least 80mph, and a small number are going in excess of 90mph.  But Slow Mary plods along at a turtles pace.

On rare occasion I have seen her in the morning, on her way to wherever she goes….

Yes, slow and steady wins the race, but I cannot imagine have my commute take longer than it already does.  Therefore I cannot fathom this woman,… is she afraid? Does she think she is saving fuel? Does she really have all the time in the world? 

It is a comforting site, though, to see Slow Mary every evening somewhere beyond the Hampshire truck stop, but before the Genoa Road exit.  The familiar is a comfort.

The Magnolia Tree

Half an hour by car.
Driving slowly into town.
Past a log cabin in the park.

We knew the house by the magnolia.
A tree in the front yard.
It shaded the front room windows.

Pink in bloom.
Large flowers.
A place of quiet comfort.

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Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

 -- Joyce Kilmer

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Who was Joyce Kilmer - link to wikipedia

picking elderberries

Late of July they always came.  A couple in a car, parking on the roadside, quickly quietly cutting off the small branches of elderberry off the bushes. Many bushes and shrubs grew along the roadside bordering the farmers field.

Some years he did not see them, there in the distance, filling their pails with berries. He knew, they took the fruits and made pie and jelly, possibly wine. It was good. The farmer remembered his wife doing such things.

Early every August the farmer would sit in his kitchen and silently cry for his long dead wife.  His children gone, he carries on, farming his land.

One year the couple did not come for the elderberries.  The farmer knew when the birds carried the berries in their spoor to his driveway, leaving the evidence for him to find. He wondered, briefly, what happened to that couple and the little girl they brought with them. 

Later that same year he went out by the road and cut down all of the bushes and shrub growing there.

Many years later the child grew her own elderberries. Late of July she could be seen, driving her lawn tractor past the massive elderberry bushes, reaching out for a handful of the berries to eat. This made her supremely happy.

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i miss my elderberry bushes

a lesson my mother taught me

Yesterday I attended a funeral. 
It was a beautiful service.
It struck me that it was real celebration of the life of a wonderful person.
Today a friend is remembering her son, and celebrating his life.

It honors those we have lost so much more when we celebrate their lives.
Rather than be sad that they are gone
Rejoice that you knew them.
Tell their stories, speak their name.

a lesson my mother taught me.
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Thankful for blessing of family

I am blessed to have family to spend the holidays with. 

A warm gathering of lively friends.

Camaraderie, conversation, laughter.

Kind, caring, to make a gluten free turkey.

Extra work out of love.

A comfortable place to spend time.

 I am so thankful for these delightful folks.

Gracious, welcoming, warm.

Thank you.

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Alzheimer's Disease, dementia,...

I watch General Hospital.  Over many months they have had a story about Alzheimer's Disease.  Mike Corbin, father of Sonny Corinthos, has Alzheimer's Disease.  They have told the story well, detailing Mike's gradual evaporation, from a vibrant, funny, and very in the moment man, slowly disappearing into a terrible state that is the final stages of an insidious illness.

My mother died from Alzheimer's disease.  As I watch this past Monday's episode Mike's friend Stella is talking about what might constitute a "good" day for Mike.  She is asking: ..what do mean by good? Is he trapped in some memory of the past? Is he lucid or stoic as if in a trance....

And my thoughts turn to my mother.  She was not trapped in the past, struggling with awful memories as some of her roommates at the nursing home were.  Lillian was just disappearing very slowly.  I think that was a good thing, but it hurts to think of it.  To have one's self disappear gradually, until they are almost bland, and yet she retained enough self to not become nearly catatonic.

My mother had one roommate who seemed to be reliving an unsettling memory. The poor woman would talk to someone not present, and it was not a pleasant memory, but a slightly fearful memory.  And she relived this event in cycles,...it came back to her and started over again at regular intervals.  No one could interrupt the scenario once it began in her.  The poor woman; I never heard her have any kind of conversation with anyone - she just relived a fraught piece of her life over and over again.  And she was not the only one going though that.

Others rant angrily, over and over repeating the same tirade of apparent nonsense.  The staff struggles to calm them down once they begin the rant, because these unfortunate ones work themselves into a near frenzy.  It is sad and frightening to witness.  May God grant them peace.

Too many sit, nearly catatonic. They may cooperate and do what the staff asks of them: please sit here or let's do this.... Or a spoon is placed in a hand and a the meal indicated, and perhaps the patient will feed him or her self, or not, in which case someone will sit and patiently feed them.

Really the most one can do is be patient. Sit with them. Read to them - even if it appears that they are not listening. Be present. I believe they know someone is with them.

My mother began to disappear, but it was gentle for her. There were no fraught memories, she was as lucid as the disease would allow.  She was not animated, but she was not still, in control of her movements, able to move about in her wheelchair.  I don't know much of her behaviour when I was not present.  I know that she knew when it was Saturday, because that was the day I visited her.  Saturdays the staff would wake her, she would open her eyes and softly say, "It's Saturday. My daughter is coming to visit me today."  It was the only day of the week that she did not ask her care-givers, "what day is it?" every 15 minutes. I could animate her for a few hours once a week.  But she was disappearing, slowly fading away.  

it is a hard thing to witness

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Gluten in the holiday season...

Party scene:

Welcome to the party, the hostess begins by explaining that some of the food is Gluten Free. She did this special for me because I have Celiac Disease. Everyone appears to be listening to her. She explains that the 2 smaller pizzas are Gluten Free and asks attendees to NOT take any of those if they are NOT required to be Gluten Free.

Let’s not rush the food table now, we don’t want to look like pigs.

Oh, there are 4 people ahead of us in line… 3 of them think those Gluten Free pizzas look good, despite there being regular pizzas with the exact same toppings…. They help themselves to the Gluten Free pizza,… now I feel obligated to overload my plate with most of the rest of those SMALL Gluten Free pizzas, lest I go hungry otherwise.

Oh, yes, there is a Gluten Free salad, with no croutons in it… but someone carelessly dropped the only serving utensil for that salad. I watch as they shrug and grab the serving utensil out of the salad with the croutons in it, and plunge that utensil into the Gluten Free salad… no salad for me today. *sigh* That was all of the Gluten Free food for the main meal, so I only get Gluten Free pizza, and not enough to satisfy my hunger either.

The hostess stops by my table, and I pretend that I had plenty to eat and thank her for remembering to have some Gluten Free food for me. And she tells me that the red velvet cupcakes are Gluten Free! So when the desserts are on the food table I run up and take 3 of those Gluten Free cupcakes for myself. I do not feel guilty for doing so, because so many of the people at this party are careless pigs, who do not pay attention or are too ignorant to ask what Gluten Free means.

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This happens to people with Celiac Disease ALL THE TIME. You have NO IDEA how hurtful it can be to watch while everyone else eats anything they want, but I am served a plain salad of iceberg lettuce. 

Try not eating the food, and just watch the faces of everyone in the room... they are joyfully devouring whatever they please. 

And: NO, I don’t want to eat before the party and then watch everyone else eat/enjoy the foods I cannot have (smell the delectable scents) – because those foods would make me extremely ill for the next several weeks. That is no exaggeration,… recovery time from being glutened can take weeks, and cause other complications. It will knock you flat, with intestinal cramping and watery diarrhea.

Celiac Disease is AUTOIMMUNE, it’s a serious illness. Autoimmune disease means that my lifespan will be shorter.... because I have had Celiac Disease my entire life, but was not diagnosed until I was over 50. The damage done cannot be undone. 

link: can-celiac-disease-cause-early-death

link: new-clues-to-risk-from-celiac-disease#1

link: what foods to avoid if you have Celiac Disease

link: surprising-products-that-contain-gluten

link: an-open-letter-to-skeptical-health-care-practitioners

link to celiac.com website


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