Gift Ideas for People with Alzheimer’s Disease

During this time of year, people begin thinking about gifts for the holidays. For a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease or other form of dementia, family members and friends oftentimes struggle with appropriate gift items. A listening device with recordings of favorite songs. Framed enlargements of family pictures. A picture scrapbook of the loved one’s life, work, awards, and more. A photo album filled with pictures of past fun family activities. A personal reminisce/life enrichment box with contributions from all family members, based on the person’s specific interests. Recorded Bible readings, sermons or poetry. Lotions, creams, or favorite scent. A music box. A therapeutic photo memory quilt or fidget quilt, such as the ones at http://www.patchworkmemoryquilts.com A favorite dessert or treat. A leisurely stroll through a favorite place. A visit to a local church. A drive to see the holiday lights. A new pillow, sheet set or comforter. Soft lap blankets. Large print books. Soft, fuzzy nightwear or slippers. Holiday decorations to decorate their door or apartment. “Regardless of abilities, loved ones with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia will appreciate and respond to gifts,” said Juliet Holt, director of dementia care programming for Brookdale. “These gift suggestions highlight and encourage at least one dimension of living an Optimum Life®. We encourage providing opportunities for success during the holiday season.”

The X Factor: Kyle enters The X Factor to follow his passion of singing and love of Girls Aloud. Will his idol Cheryl put him through to the next round?

El Peor Cantante del Mundo

La Mas Agresiva Del Factor X

This is probably the angriest contestant we’ve ever had on The X Factor. Rachel thinks she’s got what it takes to win – but her reaction turns nasty when the judges don’t agree.

The X Factor 2009: 40-year-old Daryl from East Sussex is a cabinet maker by day, but is following his passion in his brother’s memory. Will he make it through?

Eighteen-year-old, Leon, shop assistant wants to sing, but his mum’s not too sure. Has he got what it takes?

John & Edward The X Factor: Twins John and Edward from Ireland bound onto the stage with incredible confidence – but have they got the voices?

X Factor – Crazy girl, she is angry. Enjoy!!

The X Factor 2009: Olly Murs is an ‘ordinary geezer’ but dreams of making it big. Does he have The X Factor?

These girls certainly make an entrance! They give Dermot quite a surprise too!  They call themselves Fallen Angels

Lloyd Daniels The X Factor 2009: 16-year-old Lloyd has only ever performed in school plays, and is nervous about his audition. Will the judges be impressed?

The X Factor 2009: With a member of the group who has failed The X Factor before, have Miss Fitz got that spark the judges are looking for?   MISSFITZ

18 year old shop worker Matthew thinks he can be the next Robbie Williams… but he starts with some impressions of previous winners…

Most people assume meeting there goal and maintaining that goal, can be done with a quick fix diet or supplement. Unfortunately, this is just another fitness myth. Although you may see a few results initially, you will soon run into a brick wall, better known as “plateau.”

*The AVERAGE PERSON: “But that’s not true, crash dieting and hardcore supplements worked for me.”

*JKalisthenics FITNESS PROFESSIONAL: “Though you’ve met your fitness goal, your body will not be able to maintain those results, unless you continue on that unhealthy route. Probably the most factual statement, that has been around for many decades is, ‘easy come, easy go.’ Once you attempt to transfer back to your regular lifestyle, your body will want to over-indulge because of the malnutrition you’ve placed upon it; which will overall lead to consuming more calories than necessary. As a result, all ‘hard-earned’ results will fly right out the window, and body fat gains will sore to as much as 3 times where you began. The healthy way, is the best way. If having the ideal physique you’ve always dreamed of was easy, everybody would have their ‘dream bod.’ Fortunate for some and unfortunate for others, permanent results come from hard work, dedication, and accountability.”

With JKalisthenics, you will gain the knowledge of how to meet your fitness goal, the healthy way, and maintain that fitness goal permanently!

*The AVERAGE PERSON: “Well that’s good to know, but I don’t need a Fitness Professional or Personal Trainer to help me, I believe I can do it myself.”

*JKalisthenics FITNESS PROFESSIONAL: “That’s great that you already have the drive to meet your goal and will be accountable for your results gained; however, are you positive you’re working out and dieting correctly? If not, you can end up doing more damage to yourself than good. In the hands of a Professional, you can expect to meet your goal in a minimizing injury and maximizing results fashion. Think about it: would you prefer to drive a car that has brakes, or are you the risk-taker that would prefer to drive a car without brakes? JKalisthenics is the car with brakes. If you can answer all of the following, that’s pretty awesome, and chances are that you can meet your fitness goal alone: How many calories does it take to burn just 1 pound of fat? How many calories do you need to consume each day to meet your fitness goal? What is a calorie? How many times per week should you workout? When you do workout, what intensity level should you be in to maximize your results? Do you have anterior, lateral, and/or posterior deviations; and if so, what should you do to correct these deviations in order to minimize the chances of injury while working out? Do you need a Personal Fitness Trainer?”

If the answer to the last question is yes, feel free to call JKalisthenics today at 281.840.8723. If not, JKalisthenics sincerely wishes you the best of luck in accomplishing your fitness goal.

JKalisthenics … body architecture at its best!©

Body Architecture© – is a term derived from JKalisthenics Founder, Joe Kirby III, used to scientifically describe the way of uniquely sculpting the human physique into the ideal look by way of proper dynamic exercise & permanent good eating habits.

You know this kind of person. You met once, maybe as a child, maybe as an adult, maybe quite recently. It was instant kinship the moment you shook hands, looked at each other and smiled. Kindred spirits found without any effort at all it seems. You’re instant facebook and myspace friends, on each other’s twitter feeds, have inside jokes within two days of knowing each other, sometimes even one.

Things go absolutely swimmingly, you spend many nights up talking, or then over cups of steaming tea in the grey afternoons, you grow close, share with them your insecurities about your physical appearance. Maybe go shopping, gossip about people you know, people you don’t know. Share your views of the world with each other, laugh until you feel like you want to die from the cheek cramps.

You go further with your new friend, you call them when you feel your heart is breaking, you cry over the phone, they come and comfort you, even if it is in the middle of the night. This goes on for a long time, and you grow extremely close, you treat them like your brother or sister. Think of nice gifts for them, smile when you remember something funny you shared, and you’d most likely have things you’ve told them that you’d never, ever have imagined telling anyone in your life. Shared the parts of you that one may call the “darkest and twistiest”.

And one day that person is gone. Physically at least. You bid teary goodbyes, cry at night at the possibility that you’ll never meet that person again. Because you feel lost that your anchor, your pillar, your go to person is suddenly gone from your life. But the both of you vow you’d keep in touch.

And then all of this comes crumbling down. Maybe this seems naive. But with almost every person I have vowed to keep in touch with, I have, and they with me. I feel glad, most of the time that chance had so kindly brought these wonderful, beautiful people into my life and they remain my anchors, my pillars, my people who lift me out of sorrows when I have them even from afar.

But then sometimes in life an invisible man or woman comes along. Every single piece of the puzzle seems to fit, but then there is one that is missing: their caring.

Some days I wonder if it just because of my naivete that I fail to upkeep my friendships with these people once they are gone. Sometimes I cry because I literally give these people a whole piece of my heart and they seem to throw it away. Sometimes I wonder if they even cared at all, if all of the previous seeming to care was an act so that they could get something in exchange for their companionship.

Until one day I decided I wouldn’t tolerate the “let’s not burn bridges” bullshit any longer. I couldn’t because anyone that I do consider a friend is someone I expect some kind of reciprocation from. At least some kind of acknowledgement, some kind of contact, a “how are you” perhaps, after a reasonable amount of time. So after being extremely suspicious of a certain friends that I did care for and who disappeared on me, I turned on them and asked quite frankly, if they still bother about me as a friend, and whether I should care or not about them any longer.

Perhaps it was because it was such a nasty question to ask of someone, that person declared that it hurt them that I should ask and that they cared, far too much, for me to be out of their lives.

But here I am again, about a half year into this “long distance friendship” as one might call it. While I have made it work with so many others, this person fails to contact me. Fails to be curious about how I might be doing in life, fails to ask even if I may ask them. With no effort whatsoever on their part to care, I no longer have doubts anymore whether I am in their thoughts, doubts or prayers.

I should say goodbye, for my own sake. But it hurts, cutting that invisible heartstring that ties me to that person. All that history, all that effort, all the emotion and love you put into it seems almost wasted, and that is only the least heartbreaking thing about the whole affair. Which is why I would never wish invisible friends on other people who seem to give their love away as freely and foolishly as I do.

This is going to hurt a lot friend and I will mourn the end of our probably all-but-dead friendship for a week, maybe two. All I can really hope is that one day you see that I loved and cared for you, even more than you had probably imagined and looked at why you lied to me the way you did.

Daffodils

Freshly 18 you go out into the world sacrificing yourself

To the gods of newly painted apartments and friends who won’t wake up

Your belly is empty …but who gives a damn in days as dark as this

Breathe slow and attempt to sync exhalation with the drum that your heart now beats to

And pretend that I am a little man dancing precariously amongst newly grown hairs on your scalp

Mocking our past selves, present truths, and future occupations

I once had a dream that I would work in some old shipyard

Sun kissing my neck deeply like lovers before a war

The only thing I would have to come home to is you

Playing me your deepest desires on some old 45

Phrases of your whiskey drenched soul dribbling out

In someone else’s worn out voice

I have just realized that this is a love for my nightmares

I’m tired of watching days pass like this

Waking up back sticking to your sheets

Attempting to hold a cigarette steady with a trembling hand

I look into you once starlit eyes

Now sad dwarfs for planets soon to fall into

We pretend each dawn is a miracle

Hold your head above the water

And we will mix passion with broken teeth

And scratch tallies marking the newborn days

With our exposed bones

I’ll kiss the tears that glide quietly down your cheek

Hoping that by some terrible mistake we will stay together

I couldn’t have dreamt up a more beautiful ending

To something so seemingly tragic

So hold me quietly for this last hour

And we will listen as the sky consumes itself

Because this isn’t the time for us to wonder

If we’ll ever get our shit together

This is the early afternoon of our discontent

]]> http://lp2008.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/using-data-is-critical-in-making-your-loss-prevention-decisions/ Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:29:45 +0000 Paul Jones http://lp2008.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/using-data-is-critical-in-making-your-loss-prevention-decisions/

In a world with constricting budgets and increasing crime, approaching your risks utilizing analytics is critical to building your Loss Prevention program.  Providing enhanced measure where they matter the most is possible.

From LP Magazine

Loss prevention analytics tailored to optimize your business performance. CAP Index is now offering loss prevention analytics to help reduce losses.  Applying sophisticated techniques to a broad array of data, CAP Index builds customized risk models that help clients optimize their business performance.  For more information click www.CAPIndex.com/LPM.

Here comes the flood
The beat of rain in the dark,
Here comes the water,
Streams of pain make their mark.

A shoreline appears,
From the stone come angry waves,
A sinking in tears,
Of moments that nobody saves

The flotsam and leftovers,
Of the lost and the gone,
Are tearing at the souls
Of those that move on

The lake is returning,
Chewing on edges of fields,
They can be mourned,
Sadly in deepness that seals

The Turlough is born,
Again from the summer’s retreat,
The seasons will turn,
But seconds will hammer and beat

The friction and filing
Of the self by the slip
Is scraping the core,
Of the centre we grip

A surface so rough,
Broke up by currents and air,
The thought is enough
To flood the heart with despair

Our world can be dark,
Punctured by few days of sun,
The way can be stark,
These wet roads flow into one.

Sit there and watch
As it swallows the ground in a gale
Kneel now to catch
The sunken reminding detail

The flotsam and leftovers,
Of the lost and the gone,
Are tearing up the souls
Of those that move on

The friction and filing
Of the self by the slip
Is scraping the core,
Of the centre we grip

*

Long, dark hair falls
in a twisted cascade,
sweeping and brushing;
licking her lower back,
tickling her buttocks …
She lifts her head forward,
and sighs; He loved her hair.

*

The scent of it, earth-y;
A hint of vanilla and patchouli,
and clove is locked into her skin …
Aromas, bringing a serene comfort
with their familiarity;
A grounding effect …
Reminding her of him.

*

She has a powerful urge to cut,
and let it fall to the floor;
Carrying the power and strength,
of memory and desire away.
She lifts a single tress to her nose,
Inhaling his dead words and,
absorbs her tears – with the lock.

*

Locks – rusted; became ashen,
underneath: All that grief;
Like a silvered and tarnished halo.
She glimpses the reflection before her,
and sees all that remains – the remains,
of her former self … and,
she wants to slice into the ruins.

*

Today we are officially celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. All of my in-laws have safely arrived and we will have our big meal this afternoon. Frick and Frack are having the time of their lives with all their cousins (all boys, the wine will be flowing which goes without saying).

I’m not going to lie. I have been struggling with the holiday season as I’m sure you all might have guessed. It’s approaching nine months since my Mom passed and I have managed a good amount of healing but the major holidays bring my grief back into acute focus. This is because of her glaring absence and also the collected memories of holidays past shared with her.

I need to acknowledge Mad Dog’s patience with me during all of this. My intense (and often unpredictable) emotional state has been less than pleasant. I have to come to appreciate that glimmer of fear in his eyes anytime that he interacts with me. He knows even a simple question like, “What are you doing today?” could potentially set me off. Oh, grief, what a strange and complicated process! Thank you for putting up with me.

To honor my Mom today I am doing something out of character (no, I am not taking up pole dancing, sorry Mad Dog). I am painting my lips a bold red. My Mom was not a person to fuss with her outward appearance (regardless, she was extremely beautiful). She didn’t care to shop, dress-up or wear make-up. She was more concerned about college football scores or spending time outside. However, on the rare occasion we could get her to dress-up, she would apply her single tube of stately red lipstick. I hope that the lipsticked kiss I am sending towards the heavens reaches her today and that I find the one she’s sending me with at least some of the color and all of the love intact.

Buy in:
M-CFWU

WOD:
2 rounds
400m run
10 push ups
10 squats

Record your time

Cash out:
5 leg lifts

ok
sorry for being
missing in action
but
i had some time away

two days to be precise

it wasn’t long enough
but at the same time
the perfect amount of time

it gave me time to
think
away from the normal
daily routine
of life

it gave my soul time to breath
to really look at itself

and

say
“you’re not coping”
but
“its ok you can feel like you are”
“in time it will pass”

and i truly believe
and know that it will
but until then
the pain
and sadness is so
overwhelming

I thank Mike practically every day, but today, I wanted to write it down.

Mike and I went through a lot, when we were in High School and then again, when we reunited in 2005.  Mike and I had a long distance relationship from the time we got back together, December of 2005 – after 13 years, to the time I moved out to Las Vegas to be with him in October of 2006.  When he and I got back together, I was still drinking, and so was he.  We talked on the phone for hours and hours each day.  And we drank.  I can not tell you how many times I woke up realizing that I had passed out or blacked out leaving me not remembering the ends of our conversations.  Did he say ” I love you” and i didn’t answer?  Was he talking and then realized that I wasn’t really “there” anymore.  It happened too much.

Mike and I talked at length about our drinking problems; we both knew that we had to stop.  Mike was the first one to tell me that I might have a drinking problem.  “I think you might drink too much”, is what he said.  I was sort of offended, especially this coming from him, who did drink too much, but that doesn’t matter.  And i knew that.  I knew I believed him and that was when I really started to see that my drinking was a problem.  It was being with Mike that woke me up to what I was doing to myself.  It was being with Mike and wanting to spend the rest of my life with Mike that led me to see myself from outside myself and get a different view.  It was being with the man who I had thought about being with since the day we’d met, Sophomore year in High School, that made me want to try harder and really make an effort to get better.  I was embarrassed of my behavior.  I was ashamed of myself, for being nothing.  When I was really only answering to myself, I let myself get away with everything, or pretended to not really notice what I was really doing to myself.  I wanted to be everything to him.  I wanted to be the greatest.  We had such great plans to be together, the spirit was there, but I knew, in the state I was in, I wouldn’t be capable of anything but dreaming.  I didn’t want to disappoint him, and I didn’t want to disappoint me.

He felt the same.  We talked about it, all the time.  On May 31, 2006, I quit drinking.  I’ve been sober ever since.   I owe a lot to my brother John and my friend Kelly too.  They quit with-in the same year.  Those are two people who a great many people never thought would quit.  They did, and they are inspirations, and I thank them greatly too.  But,  my wanting to spend the rest of my life with Mike was really the catalyst, John and Kelly gave me the strength.

I moved to Las Vegas in October of 2006.  Mike and I have both struggled with depression, on different levels.  He was concerned that his depression was going to push me further down.  I always said that we would deal with this, that we should not wait any longer to be together, that we were supposed to be together and years down the road, when things are better we would look back on these times and be proud that we got through the toughest times together.  He would agree, but he was scared of what his depression was going to do to me, ’cause I was getting better…Well, it did affect me, but that was ok.  I remember feeling it, and watching it happen.  His reclusive nature mixed with mine was not good.  But, since I had quit drinking, I was worlds better than I ever had been.  I had much more strength to push through.  It was about a year after I had moved to Las Vegas that I really felt bad.  I was sleeping until noon, totally un-motivated, and always waiting for him to do something with me, something, anything and doing nothing for myself.  But there was always a reason to not go somewhere…and it had taken its toll on me, I had let it.  So, I had enough.  I felt like a lump again, and I felt like a terrible girlfriend, well, by then, we were engaged.  I remember writing him a letter, because I didn’t have the energy to say everything I wanted to say to him, to apologize for how bad I had gotten.  I wrote him the letter to say I was sorry and that I would be better and worth being with.  I said I had enough of me and that I was finally going to go to a doctor and see if I should be put on medication.

Mike and I talked a lot about it and he made me feel a lot better about trying medication.  He struggle too, and he really made me feel strong and didn’t judge me but wanted to help me feel and get better.  I remember feeling like everything he was saying he meant for himself too, but he had so much more faith in me than he had in himself.  He had such fight for me.  Left on my own, I never had the strength to make the phone calls to doctors; to find one.  He helped me, he reminded me, he wanted me to fight for myself to get better.  I found a great doctor and went on Lexapro, and had blood-work done to check my thyroid and other “stuff”…i don’t know what anymore,  regular type blood work.  Then my doctor referred me to a gastroenterologist to have me checked for Celiac Disease, which runs in my family and has depression (among many, many other things) as a symptom.  I started going to the gym regularly, and it was during this time that I went to my first Yoga class, with my sister, when I was back home in Palatine, IL for a couple of weeks.  We went to a class (I had always been interested in Yoga, but had total nervous anxiety about entering a studio) and I’ve been practicing ever since and am finishing my Yoga Teacher Training as I write this.

Turned out, I do have Celiac Disease and going to the gym regularly did make me feel worlds better.  And practicing Yoga did help me calm my mind and helped me feel more free and less anxious.  I stopped beating myself up about things I wasn’t doing.  I felt totally energized and inspired.  Somehow, at that time in my life I had gotten sick of myself enough, ashamed of myself enough, disappointed in myself enough.  But, being with Mike absolutely gave me the strength to do it.

Mike is not here anymore.  He killed himself this past July.  I often think that Mike saved me.  I often think Mike’s complete understanding of depression; how it feels, is what made him so capable of helping me.  He was telling me to do what he knew he should be doing for himself, but he didn’t feel he could do.  He always told me I was stronger than him.  I told him he was wrong.  He always told me I was better.  He always made me feel I could do this, that it could and would lift.  It was being with him that gave me the courage to do it, for myself and for us.  I would see Mike and see him in his depression and it was like looking at myself.  I have to say, I would often think I was looking at myself, and I didn’t like the look of it; the look of depression.  He helped me come out.  He helped me grow.

That’s what I remember of Mike.  That’s what I keep with me.  Not the bad times and the hard times.  Those aren’t fair to keep, I think.  He didn’t mean the bad and hard times.  He was sick, and he was screaming out for me to get better.  And for that, I thank him.  He loved me and for that I thank him.    I always thought we were each others other half.   I live now and he is gone.  He helped save me and I carry that part of him with me.  I hope he has a bit of me with him.

Thank you Mike Powroznyk, for loving me enough to tell me and help me see how to get better.  I work daily to stay better for you to be proud of me and for me to be proud of me.   I love you.  I will love you forever.

Kory

Waterloo’s relentless forecheck kept the Hurricanes on their heals most of the night and this created many scoring chances for the Siskins in their 4-2 win over the Guelph Thursday night at The Sleeman Centre.

Guelph's Martin Kudla battles Waterloo's Kevin Henriques for the puck

Except for 10 minutes in the 2^nd period, the Siskins were aggressive in taking the play to the Hurricanes.  

If it wasn’t for the stellar goaltending by Chris McDougall who turned away 40 of 44 shots, the score of this game could have easily mirrored the score in their last outing when Waterloo beat Guelph 8-0.

In the opening period, Waterloo fired 24 shots at McDougall and jumped out to a 3-0 lead on goals by Scott Nagy, Ryan Dilks and Andrew Csumrik.

Tyson Theaker pulled the Hurricanes within 2 with a goal 17 seconds into the second period.

Waterloo’s Tony Blyde restored the Siskin’s 3 goal lead 2 and a half minutes later.

The score stayed 4-1 until Peter Soligo scored on shot from the point after Siskins goalie Will Sibley stopped Nic MacEachern and Mike McFarlane on a 2 on 0.

The Hurricanes pulled their goalie late in the game but couldn’t get another one past Sibley.

Final Score: Waterloo (now 18-5-0) 4, Guelph (now 8-16-2) 2

The Hurricanes take to the road for their next 2 games, Saturday in Cambridge and Sunday in Elmira.

Guelph’s next home game will be next Thursday December 3^rd against the league leading Brantford Golden Eagles. Game time is 7:45 pm.

A year ago I wrote a piece “On Giving Thanks for a New Kind of Family” in which I reconciled my lack of ‘real’ family with the family I’ve created for my self – my friends  who have embraced me literally and figuratively with a fierceness and a love that humbles and touches me.    This year as I again faced a Thanksgiving day spent mostly alone – Kelly working and Liza  with her dad and his family – I found myself slipping back into those patterns of self pity.   Yet, anyone who knows me, knows the last thing I want to be is that person you see coming and think “great here she comes dragging her trail of dead family members behind her like some kind of badge.”  Of course I’m not entirely lacking in family. I have a wonderful big brother, but his busy life as a criminal prosecutor and the comings and goings of his three active teenage boys make it hard for us to get together more than once a year if that.  Kelly’s family has welcomed me into their midst with love and hospitality and I look forward to the day when they are all my in-laws.  And yes, next year at this time Kelly and Liza and I will officially be a family of three, a prospect which excites me and fills those empty spaces in my heart.  But that six-week stretch between Thanksgiving and New Years is full of reminders of my family holidays past and it is always a struggle for me to get through it in one piece .

A recent trend on Facebook has been to undertake a “thirty days of gratitude exercise” and today it seemed everyone’s post mentioned being grateful for FAMILY (all in caps naturally) and the cooking skills of uncles and moms and grandmothers, of baking pies with siblings and rousing games of flag football on frozen lawns.  To read these posts one would think everyone lived in that “very special” Thanksgiving episode of General Hospital where the Quartermaines stop bickering and welcome the Webbers and the Spencers to their house for a lavish dinner and everyone wears turtleneck sweaters whilst sipping wine in front of crackling fires.  Yet, here I sat in an empty house with the four cats for company watching a marathon of  “Ru Paul’s Drag Race “on the LOGO network.  (Frankly, I’m stunned I’m not inspiration for a Hallmark card with a holiday tradition like this. ) Yet, as I read post after post about large family gatherings and travels to distant places and family recipes handed down from generation to generation, I realized that my family has its own morbidly unique tradition:  we all die at the holidays.

Now don’t blanche at that statement.  It’s ok.  Death is part of life after all, and really, what better time to pass away than when your family is already gathered together and the churches are bedecked with evergreens and twinkle lights? When you’ve driven to as many family funerals as I have in front of the backdrop of holiday decorations you develop a certain macabre sense of humor about it.   It all started December 21, 1980 when my grandfather, who lived with us, had a massive heart attack in the back seat of my family station wagon and fell over and died on my 14-year old shoulder.  “He died with someone he loved more than anything, “ my mom would often say to me.  At the time I was traumatized but as the years went on, I realized I had the makings of one hell of a cocktail party story.  Friends sent casseroles and deli trays to my family and for the next decade we made deli sandwiches on Christmas Eve as a nod to those days following his death, and our truncated celebration that year was the first time I’d spend the holidays wrapped in the cocoon of my family as we mourned the loss of someone close to us.

Ten years later my father would pass away on January 9^th after an all-too quick battle with malignant melanoma and his funeral took place in the same family church with the same nativity scene in the corner and the same wreaths hung by red velvet ribbons along the walls.   My father’s death is something I don’t speak of often.   I was his baby girl and he was my hero.  He taught me about Broadway musicals and crossword puzzles, how to read the New Yorker, the value of a good walking stick, and how to make the perfect bourbon and ginger for my mother.  His dual Irish/Italian heritage meant he was prone to downing more than a few manhattans each night and then crying while listening to Pavarotti sing  I Pagliacci.   Losing him left a wound on my heart and a hole in my life that has never been filled and not a day goes by that I don’t wish he were here to see me and his granddaughter who looks and acts so much like I did at ten.   For the next thirteen years we celebrated the holidays with out him, my mother alternating between Thanksgivings with my brother and Christmases with my sister, and always raising a toast to my dad on December 28^th, their wedding anniversary.

Then in 2003 holiday death came calling for someone far, far too young.  My 45- year old sister was diagnosed with multiple myeloma right after Labor Day and died two days before Thanksgiving.   Shell-shocked at this unexpected loss, my brother, mother and I journeyed to Maryland on Thanksgiving Day for the sad occasion of her funeral.   I’ll never forget that long drive from the Baltimore airport to her home in Salisbury, tired, sad and hungry, we stopped at a convenience store for a Thanksgiving dinner of cracker sandwiches and peanuts.   When I returned to New Hampshire the following Monday I was stunned to see the world ablaze with Christmas lights and decorations.  Three weeks later we held a memorial service for Marie at our family church in Maine  — same nativity scene, same wreaths, same deli sandwiches.  By now we had the holiday funeral down pat.

With my sister’s death still raw my brother and I never anticipated that ten months  later we would be faced with my mother’s stage four breast cancer diagnosis.  Coming as it did in July of that year I remember sitting with her at her oncologist appointment thinking idly, “well we’ll have her for another five months,” so sure was I that she too would follow our family pattern of a diagnosis and quick death just in time for the holidays.   I didn’t count on my mother’s tenacity.  She fought back for the next three years, recovering from major invasive surgery, working through physical therapy, enjoying a brief remission, and several more trips out for lunch and dinner with her best friends, “the ABC ladies” who dined alphabetically through all of Greater Portland’s hot restaurants.   But sure enough in December, 2007 during a holiday visit from me and Liza, and my brother and his youngest son, my mom’s condition turned suddenly, horrifically grave and she was rushed to the hospital. There we were once again in the family waiting room under the soft glow of Christmas lights with holiday muzak in the background.  On January 3^rd they told us there was no hope.  On January 7^th she died and her funeral at that same family church was full of what was by now the comforting and familiar presence of pointsettias and wise men and murmured words of condolences over deli sandwiches from the local Shaws.   During those long sad final days by her bedside my brother and I would often smile wryly at each other and say “here we are again huh, planning a Christmas funeral.”  There’s more I want to say about my mother but that loss is too new still too fresh and who she was deserves more than a pithy sentence at the end of this paragraph.

I share this not to elicit pity or sympathy. My losses are no more or no less tragic than anyone else’s and if anything, they’ve given me, the queen of self -deprecation, some great material.  I share this as explanation for my obsession with gathering my loved ones to me during the holidays, for my insistence that the Christmas lights and decorations (including my impressive and often-mocked Santa Mug collection) come out the day after Thanksgiving, for my reluctance to be alone, for my need to hug Liza tighter than ever, for my love of Christmas carols on the cd player and endless viewings of the musical Scrooge, and for my tendency to tear up when Kelly holds me.   You see, this magical time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s for me is as much about loss as it is about light and giving, as much about pain and sorrow as it is about laughter and pecan pie. But it has given me a fierce appreciation for the people in my life who mean so much to me – for Kelly and Liza who are my world, for my brother Patrick, my sister-in-law Marti and my nephews, for my best friends Joe, Katie, Meghan, Dana, Margaret, Susie, Tara, June, Vicki and Lisa and Debbie,  for “my boys” Chris, Nathan, Jeff and Matt, my new gal pals Deb and Jenn,  and for my amazing cyber pals from Mothertalkers, Banshees and May 99 moms.   During this time I may write you a little more, I may hug you a little harder or reach for your hand more often, I may call a little too much. Or I may get quiet and pull back when I fear my neediness is becoming intrusive.  Bear with me.  You mean the world to me and when you’ve already lost your world three times over you want to hold on to what is left.   To say I am thankful for you would be inadequate.  To say I appreciate you would be trite.  To say I love you would be the truth — imperfect as it may be.   Happy Holidays to you… my family.

” Merry”…”Happy”…. These words will be said to me and I to others  many times in the next few weeks…how I wish I could remember  what it felt like to be merry or happy.

I spent the holidays last year in a state of survival. I was “getting through” each day. When the holidays came, I just went  numb. I tried to not be a “drag” and I put on my best face. Those days have failed to become any kind of holiday memory. I couldn’t tell what I did on any of those “holidays”.  Maybe, I blogged about them. If I did, I need to read those entries  to know where I was and what I did because I truly do not have the faintest clue.

This year, the numbness is off  and I feel the emptiness and the loneliness more acutely than ever. Today was past “hard”. In many ways, it was unbearable.

I spent Thanksgiving with my younger sister who is afflicted with dementia. She has Down’s Syndrome and it isn’t  uncommon for people with Down’s to develop dementia should they live into their middle age years. So it is with my sister.

It seems that Dan’s death uncovered her memory loss. Even though she attended Dan’s Memorial service, she forgot about his death until this past July. When I met her at the doctor’s office, she asked about Dan and how he was. I told her that he died and, from that time to this, she has been in a state of inconsolable grief.

Her grief isn’t just for Dan. It is for all of the losses that has been in her life.  We lost our mother in 1990 and Dad in 2001. She went to live in the group home a few years before Dad died, but she never accepted the group home as her home. Now, it is more clear just how much she never acclimated.

For the past several years,  it seemed that she adjusted to living her own life at the group home rather than live a peripheral one through our parents. Life with Mom and Dad was a secure one. Her disability placed her at the center of my parent’s life. At the group home, everyone there is like her. She isn’t the “princess” and she misses the life where her wants and needs were met without having to share the lime light.

Every visit with our older sister or me, she would always thrill when we passed the sign for the city limits. A huge sigh would escape her and she would say, ” I am home.” Now, when she comes to visit the thrill has become a desperate desire and she says, ” I want to live with you.”

She reasons that Dan’s death opened space for her and  she should live with me on the family farm.  I know that I cannot take care of her and work. I can’t give to her the  dearest desire of her heart and the guilt compounds each time I see her. It makes finding joy in the midst of such unhappiness overwhelming at times.

As she tries to process Dan’s loss, she is reliving the loss of our parents as well as other losses. Our older sister has Multiple Sclerosis and, due to her health, had to sell the “home place” and the family business.

When she visits me, we turn directly in front of the house in which we grew up. Because she forgets that the house was sold, each visit causes her to relive the shock of seeing people living in her house. Each time, my eyes well up as I watch her tears roll down her face. Each time, I am reminded of that ache that comes to a heart after loss and the guilt compounds.

It is the same when she passes the location of the family business. She sees strange cars there and she insists on stopping. As I try to explain that our older sister had to sell the “plant” and that we cannot stop, she asks, “Why not?”. She wants to go inside and sit at the desk that was once hers.

She tries to hide the tears and frustration, but lately, she cannot contain her disappointment or her anger and fear.

Her bewilderment at the changes in her life only exacerbates the cloudiness of mind that dementia brings. Dan’s death, the sale of the home place and the business, each one would be hard for her to process, but now, she must try to work through these great losses as she struggles to remember the most simple things.

Where she once was independent in caring for herself and her personal needs, now she requires supervision and encouragement to stay on the smallest of tasks. As she roams from room to room, she knows that something is wrong. She shakes her head and says, ” my brain…” or she will sit on the couch and blankly stare and say, ” what’s going on?”

I didn’t take her to the family Thanksgiving dinner today. In the last few weeks,  an uncle and an aunt  were diagnosed with cancer. I knew that, during the dinner, my sister would learn of their illnesses and she would become hysterical.

When my sister hears the word cancer, she  immediately starts to cry, then sob, then wail…loudly. To her, cancer and death are synonymous. Our mother died of cancer, Dan died of cancer and so many others in our family have succumbed to this terrible disease. In my sister’s mind, Cancer=Death.

Her display of raw grief is hard to watch. Because the diagnosis for our aunt and uncle is so recent, I didn’t want my sister’s sobs to add more emotional stress on my afflicted uncle and aunt. My sister cries so hard that small capillaries will break in her face.

 All of this takes a great toll on my sister, on me, and on the staff at the group home. After the visits home, my sister’s behavior is becoming more difficult for the staff as she acts out her anger over  the uncontrollable events of her life.

Call me a coward, but I couldn’t emotionally handle the nakedness of my sister’s expression of grief. I am not strong enough to help her process the natural question of “Why?”. The depth of her losses is so much greater than mine…and I wonder how, or even if, my sister’s grief can be managed as her own ending is approaching.

Thankfully, she forgot that today was Thanksgiving and I cowardly chose to avoid the pain instead of walking through it. Instead, we ate at the local Cracker Barrel. While we were eating, I realized that she didn’t remember having dinner at this restaurant the night before with our older sister. Her short-term memory has worsened since her last visit four weeks ago.

As the holiday season descends on us, it feels like a dark cloud that must be endured rather than celebrated. I can redirect my thinking, but my sister can’t. My sister is lost in this fog and I know that her time here on this earth is ending.

I cannot remember how it  feels to be ”merry” or “happy” anymore. These days are a continuing reminder that the world as my sister and I knew it has ended….and her ending  is fast approaching .

I suppose I must discover a way to gain through loosing. It is such a confusing concept, yet it is the only way to walk out of these shadows. I just wish I knew where to begin walking through this loss. Maybe, I need to look for A Star to guide me.

There have been so many losses in my life, that is why I don’t let a whole lot of people in because people tend to leave whether it be their doing or The Lords doing or someone elses doing.  My Papa,  My precious Mother, My Grandmother Brown, My close friend, My Nana, My uncle, and my sweet kitty Silver.  I miss them so much my heart aches more than any words could be typed here ever.  But on the other hand, I am thankful for the many loving memories I had with each… however short.  I really am.  I would never lie about that.  So on this, a day of Thanks… a day I miss them the very most and it hurts the very most… I am also the most Thankful for my life and times with each of those loved ones I am hurtfully aching for tonite.  Because yes, the love really does keep the memories alive… if you allow it.

Yes its hurts tremendously when you try to keep your lost loved ones alive in your heart yet you know you will never hold and embrace them in your arms again.  You want just one more minute.  But this and the above writing kind of work together.  It is a very difficult grieving and healing process.  I am working so hard at it.  And I still have that ache inside to bear a child but know that will never happen.  That is a grieving process as well.  To have that dream in your heart but know it won’t happen.  But I am thankful for the kids in my life.

Anyway.  Its a hard nite tonite.  Hurting.  But Acceptance and healing.  Trying. 

It’s seems like a million days since farewell. A million days since moments together stopped to be. A million days since our destinies diverged. I stand back and watch our time together pass soundlessly into the past. Into that place where facts are colored by my fears and fantasies, reality shaped by my love and hate, and time, measured by my passion or indifference.

A million memories, moments of the past, seem to gather dust in the attic inside my head. Away from the din of the dreary everyday life, away from prying eyes, away from the tribulations of my day-to-day existence, life lies fragmented and frozen in silent testimony to my time here.

Every gasp, every sigh, every voiceless prayer and unshed tear of my life lives here for eternity. In the solitude of my soul, I climb the three scores and a year old rickety staircase to my attic often now. The tired wood rattles and creeks under my feet as in protest to my frequent visits.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in broad daylight, sometimes with the leisurely coutenance of a seasoned tourist, sometimes with the fervent passion of a faithful pilgrim, sometimes for seconds, sometimes for hours, I visit you often in my attic.

I see the vibrant smile, I see the twinkle in your eye, I see the beautiful feet. I see a tear drop braving gravity’s pull. I hear the laughter – unrestrained and full. I see the arms that once held me. Among the unfilled promises of the days gone by I see the moments that made surrender possible.

Amidst the unborn children of my dreams I see everything that gave birth to moments so beautiful. Long after I have bid you my final goodbye, the attic will still be alive with their suppressed giggles and suggestive smiles. In the silence of the night, if you listen closely, I am sure you will hear them laughing.

]]> http://mdetelj.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/thank-you/ Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:48:16 +0000 Mike Detelj http://mdetelj.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/thank-you/

Today, I realized what makes me the most happy; my closest friends.

We have been through a lot and have shared a pretty incredible experience since our first confrontations. I wanted to take this time to thank you, personally, for everything. The arguments, the successes and failures, the moments of truth, the silences and the outlandish activities we have all shared together. There is nothing more that I can ask for in this world other than us all living successful and happy lives. You are the greatest anyone could ever wish for and thus the reason why I have no hesitation when it comes to our chill time together. It is no wonder why my relations with women seem to fail; I give all my time to you guys, art and education. And I don’t regret a thing.

And to my fellow artists whom I believe I am good friends with, thank you for all your support. It is because of you that I am on this path and enjoying every second of it. Without you, I would not be writing this. I would probably be drunk in class or at some stupid party. You guys, in a way, saved me and gave me the key to truly expressing myself and my beliefs and I would gladly do anything to help you become more successful Ted and Peter. But more importantly, you gave me a key out of the hell I was living in. Once more…Thank you. It was an honor to help with the book and an honor to paint for hours in the rain with you, Peter. I don’t think you really understand how much it means to me.

Anyways, hope you and everyone else have a good holiday as I know this was easily the best thanksgiving I have had in years.

-Mike

The lonely fool with false belief,

that he’s winning the game,

before the end comes false relief,

realisation, tinged with shame,

two steps  lost follows one step gained,

as the ground silently moves away,

and only that cold familiar feeling is retained,

along with yet another reason not to stay

Attentive readers will know that I recently began to tackle Dante in easy stages. The idea of Dante had been taunting me for a while and I finally I bought Ciaran Carson’s translation of the Inferno at the London Review Bookshop. The translation had had some good reviews and the conceit of leaning on the tough rhythms of the English of Northern Ireland for what turned out to be a dynamic, compelling rendition appealed. It isn’t perfect and some sections struggle to achieve the (presumed) flow of the original but the pathos, horror and humour of the poem are irresistable.

At the same time, I found my own Virgil in the unexpected form of Jorge Luis Borges’s circular expositions of his lifelong love affair with the Divine Comedy in Seven Nights (which I blogged about earlier in the week). Borges advises us to forget critics, history and linguistics and succumb to the aesthetics and passion of the verse, to enter the Comedy as an emotional experience, Carson’s translation undoubtedly delivers that.

But it isn’t the only one. I’ve started working through Longfellow’s version (which I’m carrying around on my iPhone) and awaiting the conclusion of that effort is a dual language text, the fruits of the massive Princeton Dante Project. The complete text of this translation, by the scholar Robert Hollander and his wife, the poet Jean Hollander, is available on line along with audio readings of the Italian. Borges learned to read the Italian of the original – not to speak Renaissance Italian but to read the Italian of Dante – and I plan, with the aid of all this, to try a little of the same.

But to the poem! The first lines are hypnotic enough:

Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,

Or in Longfellow’s edition:

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

For someone caught in the thorns and thickets of middle age like myself, it’s an irresistible image and the journey unfolds at breakneck pace from that point onwards.

There are too many marvels and terrors to describe (and a great deal of Florentine politics that Borges wisely advises us to ignore in the first instance) but this is a parenting blog and two of the denizens of the Second Division of the Ninth Circle, the Frozen Lake reserved for Traitors to their Country (Hell is an impressively coordinated bureaucracy, a Dewey Decimal of torture, agony and the thousand and one varieties of the pain of eternal separation from the Divine) particularly caught at my heart.

In Longfellow:

Already we had gone away from him,
When I beheld two frozen in one hole,
So that one head a hood was to the other;

And even as bread through hunger is devoured,
The uppermost on the other set his teeth,
There where the brain is to the nape united. (Canto XXXII)

A man is set frozen into a hole in the icy waste, a hole he shares with another fixed in the ice a little below him. He gnaws savagely and unceasingly on the skull and brains of that other and pauses only to tell Dante his story. His name is Count Ugolino and beneath him rests one Archbishop Ruggieri.

Ruggieri and Ugoline were allies and ‘traitors to their country’ both until they fell out. Ugolini and – in Dante’s account – his young sons were locked in a tower by Ruggieri and his henchmen and starved to death, Ugolino watching them die, one by one, before his death and damnation as both punished and implement of punishment for Ruggieri.

I’ve lost parents, friends, workmates and family but I don’t think it is possible to imagine the pain of losing a child. Like any other parent, I hope I never will and whilst I’m not the praying kind, such prayers as I have are always with those who have have had to live through such a terrible event. Ugolino’s sufferings as a father are surely the equal of anything Hell has to offer and Dante is unstinting:

I saw the three fall, one by one, between
The fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me,

Already blind, to groping over each,
And three days called them after they were dead;
Then hunger did what sorrow could not do.”

Dante is silent as to whether a greater, more dreadful sin takes place and Borges calls us simply to note his silence. Ugolino’s agony is the point of his story.

The Inferno has survived for seven hundred years because Dante, like Shakespeare after him, relentlessly, tenderly, shows the solipsist in us all what the life of another is like. I suppose that’s why this episode and much else in the text haunts me to such a degree and it is good that it does.