Deciphering Mom

“Have you sat in that rocker?” I ask.

“No. I don’t want to move them,” she replies, referring to the stuffed teddy bears sitting in her chair. “Their mother died a week—more like two weeks—ago.” She says this with obvious distress.

I’m not sure how to react to such comments. Most of what Mom says still makes sense, even if only to people who know her very well and can provide the missing context. She frequently forgets vocabulary or what she wants to say and handles it well. Usually she just laughs at herself. Her positive attitude and trust that people have her best interests at heart continually amazes me.

Mom is well liked, but surprised by that fact. I told her that women at the pharmacy had asked how she was doing and said they missed her. Mom’s response was to worry that perhaps she acted too proud. “What do you have to feel so proud about, Mom?” “My clothes are nicer and I fit in them better.” It’s the truth. She has a fine 89-year-old figure.

The things that do bother my mother always amuse me. A few years ago she was very put out because the bagger at the grocery store insisted on carrying her bags to her apartment down the street. Mom does not consider herself to be frail. She still does her “fast walk” every morning (or thinks she does) and thinks she’s in good shape. She’s one of the few residents who doesn’t use a walker. And considering how her body pretty much ignores the pneumonia virus, I have to agree.

You should never call my mother elderly. Medical records all label her as a “frail  and elderly woman.” This is not OK with her and she has told her primary care physician this. She will never be elderly. In her mind the elderly are centenarians drooling in their wheelchairs. She’s too vibrant to be elderly.

She’s also very tired of hearing “good job” when she’s at doctor’s appointments or swallowing her pills. It makes her feel like she’s a dog hearing “good dog.”

She is sometimes worried about what others think about her. She’s a little concerned that the staff at her home are tired of waking her up all the time. All the other residents sleep in their chairs but she feels like she should be up and doing something. For Christmas she asked for a sweatshirt with a kitten on it so she’d look more like the other women at the home. But she’s no longer concerned about having everything she wears clean and pressed. And she’s given up on lipstick. But she still puts perfume in her hair.

There have been several times when she has insisted that the jeans she has on aren’t hers. She doesn’t remember buying them so thinks they are either mine or my sister’s. She’s a size 4 petite and my sister and I are both quite a bit larger. Twice now she’s given a pair back to staff who have just washed them. They give them to me and I put them back in her closet.

I’ve heard that it’s fairly common for someone with dementia to think someone has broken in and put new clothes in their drawers. She just thinks people have left their toothbrushes in her bathroom. I think I’d feel violated if someone left their toothbrush in my bathroom and I’d immediately throw it away. Not Mom. It doesn’t seem to bother her at all. She just wonders where her own toothbrush is. My niece just labeled her brushes so we’ll see if that helps.

My sister told me that during her last visit with Mom, she told Mom the same story three times and Mom laughed each time. I love that. Mom’s a much better audience than she used to be.

Update 8/16/2010: I visited Mom today and got the clue I needed to understand Mom’s comment about the teddy bears’ mother dying. It was a resident who had hundreds of Beanie Babies and bears in her room who died. I understand why Mom thought of her when she saw her own stuffed bears.

Songs and other things to avoid during deployment

Today I ran across a few things I plan to avoid when HabMoo is deployed.

Songs

“Come Home Soon” by SHeDaisy is getting temporarily deleted from my iPod—too much emotional longing. “Another Sleepless Night” by Anne Murray is also getting dumped, but for a slightly different reason—too much sexual longing. (It might be back on about 2 days before he returns.) I will also have to purge all the country songs about waiting for your trucker or cowboy to come home.

Certain blogs and podcasts

While taking my daily walk  and listening to Stuff Mom Never Told You the hosts spoke about 10 Reasons Why Long-distance Relationships Just Don’t Work. As if there aren’t enough reasons why our relationship might struggle, I’ll need to worry about these new ten while we’re spending another year apart?

This one I decided to just tackle head on.

10. Communication breakdown

I am not worried about that one. HabMoo would implode if he couldn’t talk to me. At least that’s what I like to think. I figure he could easily find a hundred other women he’s attracted to and could have a good relationship with, but even if left me for another woman he’d probably call me every day to tell me how it was going. And I think the military does what it can to promote family communication with soldiers, sailors, and marines. I don’t anticipate being unable to communicate for long periods.

9. A murky future

It is hard to imagine me being 60 and him being 43, but I can still easily imagine us a dozen years from now living and working in Minnesota and talking walks with camera and binoculars. I know he wants to make the National Guard his career and he’ll always be some rank of sergeant. Who knows what I’ll do with my life in ten years, but it’ll probably be a surprise to me. In some ways he is my stability.

8. The monogamy challenge or ZIP code rule

I think we have a shared understanding of this rule. If either of us were jealous, worrying types there’s no way we could have made it to marriage. He was deployed with his ex-girlfriend; I had my old boyfriend come help me fix my A/C. Neither was a problem.

7.  Trust

If I didn’t trust him with my heart, we wouldn’t be together. It’s not that I don’t think he’ll ever hurt me, but it won’t be intentional. He’ll always consider my heart. He’ll care for it and worry about it. I know that when he’s not feeling close to me, he’ll let me know and we’ll talk about how to fix that. And when I tell him he’s irritating me, I trust that he knows that it’s a temporary thing and not a fatal issue. We’ve always been able to communicate honestly.

6. Cost of keeping in touch

The Army and the Post Office help with that a bit. We’re both tight wads, but we’re willing to pay for staying connected.

5. Time commitment

Writing letters takes more time and effort than does a chat while we’re eating supper. When he returned from Iraq last time I really missed getting letters and e-mails. I loved knowing that he had spent time thinking just about me as he wrote. I had his focused attention. Honestly, I prefer the unfocused attention of his hand on my thigh as we watch a movie, but there’s a special electric excitement that comes with opening the mailbox and discovering a letter from him. I expect far more e-mails and Facebook messages, but those letters will be the things I pack away in my nightstand.

4 through 2. Blah, blah, blah … not issues at all.

1.  Life goes on

This is where my fear kicks in. There’s no way I can share the experience of serving in a forward operating base or wherever he’ll be assigned. I need the independence of separate lives and separate friends, but all relationships are strengthened through shared experience. He’ll probably come home with a new set of friends I won’t really know. I’ll know their names and some of their habits, but I won’t know them as civilians. I’ll have to learn their first names. They’ll share jokes that I’ll need carefully explained. He’ll invite them over and I’ll feel like an outsider. But I’ll also get new insights into his personality and what his experience was like.

I guess I better exercise and walk to the my Arabic music. I can’t get overly sentimental about lyrics I can’t even understand. “Habibi, habibi, habibi.” (I think that means “darling.”)

2 weeks a summer … right

National Guard troops are supposed to serve one weekend a month and two weeks a summer. That sounds reasonable. Except this summer it’s three weeks and I never heard anything about a class that runs from the week of Thanksgiving until spring. HabMoo’s absences are becoming more routine than I’d like.

After the winter’s training, three weeks sounded like nothing. He went off with friends to a cabin for the weekend before he left and neither of us really thought much about it. We’ve commented during nightly phone calls about how we’re doing just fine. But now it’s day 14 and we’re missing each other. Two weeks is what we can accept. Additional days are too many.

At two weeks I’m beginning to establish a new routine. By the end of week three I’ll have parts of it down and when he comes home he’ll mess it up. That’s a pretty minor conflict, but it’s an element of stress and there are more. When he returns we’ll both assume the other knows thoughts we’ve had in the previous days because we would have shared them it we’d been together. The refrigerator and cabinets will be rather empty because I quickly get out of the habit of stocking food for him. He will need to catch up on sleep when he returns and I’ll be used to staying up until I can’t keep my eyes open. The cats have been allowed to stay out all night and will make us pay for HabMoo insisting that they come in.

There are lots of small issues like these that slightly stress the marriage. Add to that the mental preparations we’re both making for his upcoming deployment and we could have a real issue. Not an easily defined one, however. I fully suspect that we’ll love the first couple of days he’s home and then things will feel slightly off. It’s important not to take those feeling too seriously, but to acknowledge them, nevertheless. I guess it’s good that we have experience hearing the other say “you’re kind of bugging me right now” and knowing that it’s a temporary state.

We need to come up with a few more homecoming routines to make transitions more comfortable. It seems almost silly to think that three weeks ‘f separation during which time we communicate nightly by phone and are both in the same state should need a ritual, but I think it does. I’m sure we’ll go out for sushi. We had our first sushi together when he was at some southern base waiting to go to Iraq in 2004. So we do have that ritual, but I think we need another. We need a project to complete together. Maybe we’ll tackle the last of the house painting I began in 2001 or just start over at the beginning. Or maybe we’ll just go hang out at Best Buy and Half-Price Books.

Even more Storytelling and Other Poems

These are two poems I memorized from Childcraft: Storytelling and Other Poems. And one that I wanted to, but thought it was too long.

Illustration by Eloise Wilkin

It Was

When he came to tuck me in
And pat me on the head
He tried to guess (he always does)
Who was in my bed.

“Is it Sally?” he guessed first,
“Or her sister Joan?
It’s such a wriggling little girl
It couldn’t be my own.

“It can’t be Mary Ann,” he said,
“Or Deborah because
All their eyes are much too blue—
My goodness me, I think it’s you!”
And he was right. It was.

Dorothy Aldis

Illustration by Rosemary Buehrig

Miss T.

It’s a very odd thing—
As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.
Porridge and apples,
Mince, muffins and mutton,
Jam, junket, jumbles—
Not a rap, not a button
It matters; the moment
They’re out of her plate,
Though shared by Miss Butcher
And sour Mr. Bate;
Tiny and cheerful,
And neat as can be,
Whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.

Walter de la Mare

As a child I wondered how poor cheerful Miss T. got stuck at a table with Miss Butcher and Mr. Bate and why they served her buttons. Was Miss T an orphan or was she eating with the servants? It was only as an adult that I wondered about junket and jumbles. Junket is a dessert made with sweetened milk and rennet and maybe some spices or rose water; jumbles are some sort of dense cookie.

I was fascinated by the illustrations for “The Raggedy Man” created by someone with the initials of J.S. I longed for such Wunks creatures to live under one of our pumps, but preferably not the one just outside the back door. I’ve always remember one of the other creatures mentioned in the poem as Squiggleme Squeezes, but they are actually Squidgicum-Squees.

Even more Laura E. Richard

The visitor logs to my site show that there is a lot of interest in the old Childcraft books and their poems. So by popular demand I’m offering you a few more poems and illustrations by a particularly loved author.

This poem isn’t as well know as some of her others.

Alice’s Supper

Far down in the meadow the wheat grows green,
And the reapers are whetting their sickles so keen;
And this is the song that I hear them sing,
While cheery and loud their voices ring:
” ‘Tis the finest wheat that ever did grow!
And it is for Alice’s supper, ho! ho!

…

Downstairs in the kitchen the fire doth glow,
And Maggie kneading the soft white dough,
And this is the song that she’s singing today,
While merry and busy she’s working away:
” ‘Tis the finest dough by near or by far,
And it is for Alic’s supper, ha! ha!”
…

Laura E. Richards

My sister taught me how to sing the following poem. I have sung it to my husband, too. Apparently it has greater appeal to the young.

Antonio

Antonio, Antonio,
Was tired of living alonio.
He thought he would woo
Miss Lissamy Lu,
Miss Lissamy Lucy Molonio.

…

“On, nonio, Antonio!
You’re far too bleak and bonio!
And all that I wish,
You singular fish,
Is that you will quickly begonio.”

Antonio, Antonio,
He uttered a dismal moanio;
Then he ran off and hid
(Or I’m told that he did)
In the Antecatarctical Zonio.

Laura E. Richards

I’ve always wanted to insult someone by calling them a singular fish, but have never had the confidence to do so. I just don’t know if them are fightin’ words or not.

I apologize for not quoting the poems in their entireties, but I’m assuming that the Richard family still holds the copyrights. I also wish I could tell you who did the illustrations, but they weren’t recognized by the publisher.

More Laura E. Richards

Helen, a recent blog visitor, asked me where to find this poem. As a favor to her, I’m providing the first few stanzas here. I never read this poem as a child because the illustrations by Thomas Handforth frightened me. I didn’t like the bad guy slinking around on the back of a panther.

This is from Childcraft: Storytelling and Other Poems.

A Ballad of China

Her name was Dilliki Dolliki Dinah;
Niece she was to the Empress of China;
Fair she was as a morning of May,
When Hy Kokolorum stole her away.

He was a wizard, I’d have you know;
Wicked as weasels and back as a crow;
Lived in a castle a-top of a hill;
Had a panther whose name was Bill;

Used to ride him around and around,
Creeping and peeping close to the ground;
Working mischief wherever he could;
Nothing about him in any way good!

Richards wrote other nonsense verses which also appeared in this volume. My favorites were Eletelephony and Antonio. She also published several children’s books.

Take a quiz about the poems in this volume of Childcraft.

Scars

I love asking people about their scars—their physical scars. I find it a good way to discover insights into their personalities and get a sense of their childhoods.

My scar stories

Like most kids I have one on my knee. It’s not from a single incident, but from repeatedly falling on a section of sidewalk uprooted by an old maple. I loved that section of sidewalk when I was a child. If you hooked your foot in it just right, fell, and then caught yourself before he were horizontal, it felt like flying. I loved that feeling. I just wasn’t very good at making the necessary calculations for success. Mostly I just took the risk and fell. I like this scar because it implies that I’m willing to take risks. And it’s also a reminder that the scars of even painful failures fade away.

As a teenager I leaped onto the top of a short wooden post. I felt like an owl landing on a branch, so I did it again and ended up with large bruises on my thighs. The incident was worthy of a scar, but I didn’t acquire one.

I have a scar on my arm that is also self-inflicted. I fought with my friend, Christine, in sewing class in 6th grade. She grabbed my scissors and I grabbed them back. She dug her nails into my arm to make me let go of my grasp. She won that fight. To get back at her, I kept picking the scab off my laceration and pointing out to her how she hurt me. I’m sure she no longer remembers the incident. I, however, have a scar. This scar reminds me that when trying to hurt others, sometimes you just hurt yourself.

I have one scar only my mother can see. When I was a toddler I fell out of the truck onto the sidewalk. I screamed and bled and probably threw a tantrum. Mom had to call her father to come help her with me. She didn’t take me to the doctor and felt tremendous guilt over that. So when she looks at my forehead she sees a scar. I remember being able to see it at one time, but I haven’t been able to locate it for years now. All that’s left is a feeling that I should always have bangs.

Scars of others

HabMoo has a scar to prove that he, too, was willing to take risks or that he was once dumb as a rock. As a child playing with a bow and arrows, he and a friend painted a target on a cardboard box. Then he crawled inside while his friend took aim. Hopefully he learned the importance of taking cover behind something stronger than the projectile coming your way. Evidence, however, shows he could use a second lesson.

A former partner had a scar where a German Shepherd tried to eat her head. It was a good metaphor about the parenting she experienced.

My mother has pencil lead in the middle of her palm given to her by a boy in school. I was also attacked with a pencil, but I dug all the graphite out. Consequently I can’t remember the name of my attacker. But I think it was a boy in my math class.

She also put her finger under the foot of a sewing machine and sent the needle through her finger. But somehow she escaped without a scar and only the memory of scaring her own mother.

Scars are part of our personal stories and prove that we can survive hurts. But I’m not ready to have jewelry made to commemorate it.

Do you have any good scars and stories to share?

Spouse’s deployment: what to look forward to

Whenever HabMoo has left for a deployment or months of training, I try to think of things to do I’d pass up if he was home. He’s only gone for three weeks for AT (annual training) but it’s not too early to plan for the year-long deployment next year.

Games

He sort of monopolizes the gaming systems we have. That’s OK, since before I met him I was playing Sims with a dogged determination to play it until it became fun. Then he introduced me to some good games. Like Rock Band. I always think I’ll play Rock Band with my friends when he’s gone. I don’t know why I always forget that he takes that with him when he goes. So no Rock Band during his AT. But he’s probably leaving enough pieces behind next spring that I can play. Friends: Can you come up with an awesome band name for us?

Food

Liver, beets, tuna fish, white sauces, here I come! If I think about it and don’t get into a rut of food we normally eat together.

Movies

Bette Davis will be playing next week. I’m thinking it’s time to watch all the Godfather movies again, too. And maybe catch up with those movies from the 40s and 70s I never saw. Maybe I’ll do a Robert Duvall festival.

Shopping

I’m not much of a shopper, unless I’m in a book store. But I do enjoy telling HabMoo that he should buy me something and then telling him what. So during his last training, I got the artwork pictured at right. It reminded me of the animated emoticon he’d frequently use when we IM’d during his last deployment. It was of a smiley face tipping it’s cowboy hat. Plus it just makes me smile.

I’ll have to give him a list of flowers I like and don’t like. He tends to confuse various types. I’m not a big fan of spending money on something like flowers which die and have to be thrown in the compost, but occasionally they are appropriate. Since my views on when to send flowers is rather capricious, I just tell him when. Some women get them every week or so during a deployment and that’s too much waste of money. I’d rather save up and get a pair of pink leather gloves.

Travel

During the last deployment I went to Argentina and that was a great distraction. I think next year I’ll visit a friend in Vancouver. Anyone want to invite me anyplace else? I’m always up for Yellowstone. I’d love to go to the Calgary Stampede.

Pets

Three cats isn’t too many is it? I’ll be very susceptible to mewling kittens in my sister’s barn. I’ll want to rescue one and bring it home. I am sure of this. I am sure that having a new kitten would fill some of my time. I’m sure that the currents boys will not be happy. I am sure that I’ll regret it at times. But I bet I bring one home anyway. Sorry, HabMoo. But it’s better than bringing home a new boyfriend.

Lucky me

Today I had lunch with a dear friend I don’t often see. She remarked that “everyone’s life is hard and I told her that mine felt pretty easy these days.  I reflected on this observation on the way home and realized that I have regained some of the optimism extruded from my soul during my last years at the institution where I worked.

I’m so excited by the lack of stress and repeated frustrations in my life. I feel like I should throw a welcome home party for my brighter side. I’m having to become acquainted with it.

But life truly is easy even with Mom’s dementia. I have to care for her, but I’ve gotten over the guilt of not having her move in with me and I haven’t had to put her in a nursing home. I believe she’s getting good care in assisted living. And she’s a delight to be around. She’s funny and agreeable, just slow moving and hard to clearly communicate with. She has not lost her core personality.

I have enough money. I don’t need a lot to be able to say that and I think that attitude is a blessing straight from my parents. I don’t need a lot to keep me nourished physically or emotionally or spiritually. I feel blessed that HabMoo is willing to take on the bulk of the bread-winning without rancor. I’m lucky that I have an education and skill that I can charge people to access. I can enjoy flexibility and open space in my schedule. And I find scrimping and saving to be a rewarding challenge if its not an impossible task.

My husband will be deployed this time next year, but again I feel optimistic. He’s not likely to fire a weapon unless he’s allowed on a shooting range. Our marriage is strong enough that I don’t have to worry about a year’s time being more stress than it can handle. We’ve been through it once and it sucks and it’s survivable.

I feel strong today and lucky. This makes for a rather boring blog post, but I want to be able to revisit this feeling when, as is part of the human psyche, I trip into frustration or despair and judge my life against others who seem to have it better. If I ever again get to the point where I feel like I can’t summon up any enthusiasm and I’m embarrassed by the personality people introduced to me see, then I can come back to this post and remember that this bright, optimistic and confident self is also a part of me. It’s resilient enough to return to my consciousness if given the chance.

Army vs. Peace Corps deployment from the SO’s viewpoint

Today I was wondering why I’m already so focused on HabMoo’s deployment which is several months away. I suddenly recalled preparing for D’s Peace Corps service and how that was significantly different. But why and how?

Background: D is an old boyfriend I met shortly before he left for the Ivory Coast. While there, he had to be evacuated because of civil unrest. He lived with me for a few months and then left for Jamaica. HabMoo is my husband and we married after he was deployed, but a day or two before he left for Iraq. (He spent several months of deployment in the U.S. being trained and bored.)

Length of service

Even though the Peace Corps term is two years and the Army National Guard’s is now officially only one year, the Army deployment feels longer. When D was in the Ivory Coast and Jamaica I had the option of visiting him. I don’t have the option of flying to Kuwait and getting a tour of all the historic sites and national wonders. I never planned to go to the Ivory Coast, but I did have that option. And I did take the opportunity to visit D in Jamaica. The distance in terms of miles and time seemed less because I could influence it.

Plus I have the knowledge that the MN Army National Guard Red Bulls had the longest tour during WWII and so far in Iraq (22 months of active duty, 16 in Iraq) And those soldiers who had their deployments extended just when they thought they were coming home. I also remember how many months HabMoo was in the states seemingly just waiting to go to Iraq when the countdown would actually begin. So my trust in the announced length of deployment is very low.

Historic precedence

I haven’t seen any movies or heard any songs about the Peace Corps or their loved ones left at home. I have seen lots of war movies and have listened to my own family’s stories, so my expectations are that deployments truly suck for those left at home. If I let my imagination wander, it wanders to some pretty unpleasant stories and images.

When hostilities break out in a host country, Peace Corps volunteers are evacuated. Soldiers are sent the into the fray.

The image of the soldier and the nurse in Times Square is iconic, but reveals the relief of a war ending. I don’t expect the wars we’re in now to really end so I don’t envision HabMoo coming home when the war is over. I expect him to come home when the Army decides his unit can come home. I know that his family will be excited, but I don’t expect a parade or community celebration and relief.

When Peace Corps volunteers comes home, they bring lots of stories that everyone wants to hear. When soldiers come home everyone is curious, but cautious and not so sure they want to hear the stories.

Preparations

Preparing for D’s departure was emotional and involved gift-giving, getting his new address, buying phone cards, and making sure he left one of his t-shirts behind. The date was set even if we didn’t know exactly where he’d be working. The Ivory Coast was harder to prepare for since the country had less infrastructure, but when he left we weren’t as close and I liked the thought of learning more about him through letters. Jamaica was easier; I knew I could get phone calls and regular mail.

D was super excited about his Peace Corp preparations and didn’t hide that. I could share some of that excitement. HabMoo also displays some restrained excitement a, but even though this time he’s preparing for a fairly secure location in Kuwait, he’s still preparing for war. There’s excitement, but it’s in a different key. He’s making purchases just like D did, and planning what to pack. They both prepared for a mission, for service, and I could feel proud of each of them for that.  But preparing for poverty and cultural shock differs from preparing to carry a weapon with you to meals.

The organization

The Peace Corps does a good job of preparing loved ones and letting them know what to expect before, during, and after the volunteer stint is over. And it’s even possible for the volunteer to quit. The Army is trying to prepare families, but they still pretty much suck at it. The Peace Corps has more experience and functions in the U.S. as a single organization. The U.S. Armed Services has multiple branches and there are a multitude of poorly organized websites with information and resources. This serves to frustrate this family member more than it supports her.

If the Peace Corps says the volunteer will be at this location and this is how you can reach him in an emergency, then that’s what I’ll believe. If the Army tells me that, I’ll be thrilled that they shared concrete details and then I’ll wonder how long this information will be accurate. This is particularly true when the soldier has leave or a departure date. I trust dates when I have confirmation that my soldier is on a plane and not before. War is hell on one’s ability to schedule. I can’t help but wonder if he’ll be leaving in January or November instead of April or May.

Conclusion

Peace Corps isn’t war. It’s just a long-term separation which might change the volunteer, but will most likely be a positive experience. It’s hard and lonely and routines are trashed.

War is messy and unorganized and worrisome. It’s a much harder long-term separation which will certainly change the soldier. It might be a positive change, as I think HabMoo’s was from his time in Iraq, or it might not be. I worried about D coming home and being obnoxiously wanting to tell me how things were done in his host country and how privileged my life is. I worry about HabMoo coming home crazy.

Please note: I don’t mean crazy as in having PSTD. I worry about what being cooped up and bored day after day does to his psyche, not to mention the tone of his communications with me. I’m hoping he has a few important decisions to make while he’s there so he doesn’t have to re-learn the skill when he returns. Last time he came home with the trick of picking up a pencil with his upper lip. I hope he’s able to channel his creativity and energy as well this time around.

I hope I learn to be flexible and resilient.