Old Dogs and Old Men

Her heavy hips remind Angel Girl not to rise needlessly, so she lies on one side with her front paws splayed around her water bowl, lapping the cool liquid greedily.  Her thirst hasn’t changed over her long life.  Nor has her epicurean delight in all things food related.  Whether it’s a meal that’s devoured in a flash or the rhapsodic sniffing of tantalizing kitchen aromas, the old girl hasn’t skipped a beat.

The same can be said of Dale.  Give him a well-done steak and a baked potato, or a juicy cheeseburger and fries, and all is right with the world.  I’m grateful for this because I know that the difficulty with swallowing, a prominent symptom of PSP, is possibly lying in wait to make our lives more miserable.

Over fourteen years ago, I tucked a little 1 ½ lb. mutt inside my hoody after finalizing the adoption with the ASPCA.  Dale proudly drove Mother and baby home where we immediately bathed the new addition because she smelled like she’d lived her first weeks in a compost heap.  Our only regret about that day is that we didn’t also adopt her yippy brother.  They would have been fast friends during those early years of chewing up all un-closeted shoes or pulling unguarded toilet tissue rolls from their dispensers.

Without a playmate, we tried to make up for any loneliness our 8-to-5 schedules caused by creating an environment of entitlement for her.  We often, of course, rued that decision.  In fact, a friendly observer once remarked, “After I die, I want to come back as a dog in the Shorts’ household.”  She took our largesse and our love for granted and in turn offered total devotion and frequent wet kisses.

On many a summer day I’d admire them from the kitchen window — my bronzed, shirtless husband striding across the expanse of our backyard with a short-legged ball of fur trotting behind.  I couldn’t imagine life without either one of them.  (Actually, I think Dale was a forerunner to today’s hip-hoppers who carry their dogs as accessories because his full head of near-black hair was complemented by Angel’s ebony plumed-tail.)

When Dale would pause for a dip in the pool, a frenetic puppy would follow him around the deck, never diving in, but begging to be splashed.  It tickled us both to watch her gleefully jump and lap at the explosion of droplets raining down on her — quality time with her Da.

But that was the past.  That was before a milky cataract obliterated vision in one eye, and now threatens to do the same in the other.  That was before arthritis invaded her joints, making jumping impossible, and walking painful.

These days, Angel spends the better part of 24 hours sleeping, sometimes deeply with a distinctive little snore, sometimes a light snooze with her good eye cocked for activities around her.  She goes outside reluctantly to potty and occasionally to lie in the shade for a few minutes while I garden.  When she’s ready to go back inside, she hesitantly extends one paw as a feeler toward the back stoop, ensuring it’s there and gauging its height before clumsily hopping up and through the door.  She limps toward her next nap, often beside Dale who regularly “rests his eyes” while his broken body leans over the right side of his chair.

After a good afternoon nap, all three of us will parade to the bathroom for Dale’s shower – he on his scooter, Angel limping up the rear.  No matter what, she’ll never retreat from her perceived duty as shower guardian.

I often wonder, “Where did the days go when I watched my husband ‘stride’ or my puppy ‘trot,’” movements once as natural as breathing.  The images are fuzzy now and I question my memory.  Did I hallucinate that these two loves were once so vital?  From a distance Dale’s hair is still near-black.  Upon closer inspection, the strands of silver are evident as are the myriad facial lines reaped from a life fully lived.

When the two are napping together, the rhythm of their snoring duet fills my heart with a mixture of joy and sadness.  Is he dreaming that he’s still behind the wheel of his macho truck?  Is she dreaming of the mischievous antics of her puppy days?  I hope so.  In dreamland, they can re-live their days in the sun for a while longer – at least, until the Sandman’s last call.

 

The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strain’d (It’s Simply Hiding in Some of Our Modern Institutions)

I feel like Diogenes would have, I’m sure, had he ever found an honest man.  I am incredulous and oh so grateful to Peggy Brady at Arlington Memorial Hospital.

In my continuing battle with Medicare over Dale’s $1267 ambulance bill from April, I wrote to several people in the public and private sectors, including the president of the hospital.  He, I presume, delegated my request for assistance to Ms. Brady who has a number of alphabet designations after her name, and holds a lofty multi-syllabic title.

Ms. Brady responded to my request with two letters: one to me, and another for the Medicare bureaucrats, should I choose to use it.    Indeed, I’ve already stamped the second as an addendum to my most recent appeal and will post it in tomorrow’s mail.  It’s a synopsis of her professional conclusions after reviewing the hospital records of Dale’s admission on April 1 of this year.

In her letter to me, Ms. Brady prefaced her remarks with “…we have no obligation in relation to this billing issue…”  And that’s all right.  Compliance should get its due, especially in our litigious society.  It’s the second clause in the same sentence that caused my jaw to drop in wonder and gratitude, “…we feel the right thing to do is to attempt to assist you in whatever way possible.”  Amazing.  An acknowledgement of “the right thing to do,” in my experience, is anathema to typical bureaucrats who fall back on strict adherence to rules or that old chestnut, “It’s not my job,” to avoid going out of their way.  There’s no guarantee, of course, that Medicare will be moved by Brady’s input — but I am.

Most of us feel dwarfed on occasion by the vast numbers of people who share this planet with us, and by the power of the systems put in place to look after our well-being.  More often than not, those systems put in place actually put us in our place, reducing us to just another “one” in the aggregate and forgetting that “if you prick us,” we absolutely will bleed.

To keep our sanity in check, we shrug off most of the insignificant slights dished out by a seemingly callous society.  Some even make us laugh – like the fact that our county’s property records list me as “Charla” instead of “Carla.”  I attempted to set the record straight years ago, to no avail.  Now, whenever we get junk mail addressed to “Dale and Charla,” we laugh because we know where the soliciting business got their address list.

But there are other times when the utter lack of respect by bureaucrats leaves us frustrated initially, and beaten ultimately.   That’s why the response from Ms. Brady was a refreshing pause in the drudgery of medical paperwork that goes hand in hand with a progressive disease.  The clouds of cynicism parted, however briefly, and the view from the cheap seats was glorious.

Thank you, ma’am, for caring.

 

She Ain’t Heavy; She’s my Mother

My oldest son, Patrick, came to visit last week – all the way from the East Coast.  It seems like the distance between Northern Virginia where he lives and North Texas where we live gets farther every year.  He might as well live on the moon.  Or perhaps it’s the span of time between his total reliance on me and my growing reliance on him (and his brothers) that is getting shorter, coloring my perspective.

The sweet sound of baby coo’s proclaiming me the center of his universe is a vivid memory to me, but no memory at all to him.  His nuclear family has shifted, as it should, to his wife and children, and I am now an ancillary.  Nonetheless, I am cherished, and Patrick came to assess first-hand how we’re coping with PSP, and to lend some practical advice.

Isn’t that funny?   My motherly cautions, “Wear a hat.  It’s cold outside” have been replaced by filial cautions, “Don’t lift that.  It’s heavy.”    When did our roles reverse?

As young people, we turned to our parents, school advisors and other elders when making major decisions like where to go to college, and what to study.  With little life experience under our belts, these decisions were daunting and we appreciated guidance in evaluating our choices.

Now, it is we, the old folks, who are faced with daunting decisions: how to spend our remaining days, where to live, what kind of environment do we need?  But no longer does inexperience hamper our decision making.  Instead, we’re encumbered by too many life experiences in our repertoires.  Essentially, we can’t “see the forest through the trees.”  We feel overwhelmed and want to put our heads in the sand until this disease “goes away,” until we can resume our “normal” lives.

Patrick, however, and his brother Tim, who lives nearby, are able to cut through our paralyzing clutter and present simple options.  We listen, and choose, not easily, but with more clarity than we had before.  We’ve decided to sell our home (which I’ll address in future posts).  It’s too everything – too big, too expensive, too much work, too barrier-fraught for Dale to navigate.

I don’t know what we’d do without the help of these sons who buoy us while we are at sea.  They are our living, breathing Gantt charts and they’ll be there to help us bridge each milestone.

At last, I understand my mother’s words from a June night 26 years ago.  We had just left the hospital in a haze of grief after my sheet-clad father was pronounced DOA following a sudden heart attack.  We gathered at the family homestead to support Mother and to begin the dreaded phone calling.  At some point, Mother put her handkerchief in her lap and looked at our faces, her babies, “I don’t know how people with no children get through something like this.”  At last, I understand.

 

Anatomy of a Medicare Appeal

It looks like my husband and I are gearing up for a third bout with Medicare.  Doing battle with them, however, is not the least bit satisfying because rational thought is not allowed.  Where they win the day is in their sheer size and ability to pass the buck long enough to exhaust “we the people.”  Pissants all!!!

At issue is my husband Dale’s ride to the hospital on April 1 of this year.  I had dialed 9-1-1 after Dale fell for the third time that day, and could no longer help himself off the floor.  EMTs arrived at the house, took my husband’s vitals, placed him on a gurney and transported him to the local hospital three miles away.  A few weeks later we received a statement for $1267 dollars from the ambulance service provider located in California, who, upon inquiry, informed me that Medicare had denied the claim as “medically unnecessary.”

Since then, I have called Medicare numerous times and each time the dialogue between the rotating staff of Stepford parrots and me goes something like this:

Carla:  You do understand that my husband was on the floor unable to get up, don’t you?  And yet, you say his trip to the hospital was “medically unnecessary”?  Should I have known that?  Are lay people now diagnosing health problems?

Bevis/Butthead:  Of course not.  The EMTs and hospital medical staff make that determination.

Carla:  But that’s AFTER the transport has already taken place?

B/B:  That is correct.

Carla:  Well, if you’re going to penalize Medicare patients after the fact, shouldn’t you at least warn us in advance?  Give us the health care equivalent of our Miranda rights?

B/B:  We don’t do that.

Carla:  Obviously.  So tell me, how should my husband have been transported to the hospital?

B/B:  He could have taken a taxi, private automobile, wheelchair van or other vehicle.

Carla:  But he was on the floor, unable to get up.

B/B:  Those are the rules.

Carla: Okay, let’s try this one more time.  How could my husband get to, then into any of those other vehicles when he was incapacitated on the floor?

B/B:  I don’t know.

Carla:  But somehow he was supposed to levitate himself into a different vehicle.  By that logic, he could have ridden a horse also – except we don’t have a horse – and HE WAS ON THE FLOOR!

B/B:  I know you’re frustrated, but those are the rules.

Carla:  Well, change them, or give me someone who can.

B/B:  You can appeal.  Blah…blah…blah…blah.

Here’s the problem.  The government of the people, by the people and for the people has been gasping for air for many years, almost a century, in fact.  In its stead is a governmental behemoth that has created burgeoning institutions designed to insinuate themselves into our lives, then take up permanent residence.  We the people get stuck with the tab for Uncle Sam’s largesse.  But the most gullible among us believe they’re getting a free lunch, so they shrug off a little red tape, a little more infringement on their freedoms, and most of the common sense they ever had.

Uncle’s rules and regulations are so vast and complex as to effectively give the institutions carte blanche to exercise arbitrary judgments on who gets what, when and where.  The powers behind the curtain are snake oil salesmen who, in the case of politicians, have lined their pockets by finessing what was intended to be a few years of public service into lifelong careers.  (Have you ever counted the number of 70 and 80-year-old fogies in Congress? Meh!)  In turn, they insulate themselves with a front line of automatons who spew memorized schlock to the public so they themselves never have to deal with us, the hoi polloi.

At the same time irrational bureaucrats are denying legitimate claims, they’re creating a brouhaha about Medicare fraud.  “See it, report it,” they encourage.  I’ve no doubt it exists, but who in their right mind thinks ambulances are at the core of the deceit?  To the Medicare Gestapo it’s a page out of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”  They evidently believe millions of older Americans are plotting to win the golden ticket and get a free ride in an ambulance.

Are they addled?  Perhaps they are.  Exit Willy Wonka.  Enter Forrest Gump in a brown shirt, utterly devoted to his cause, but not having the foggiest notion what the cause is.  No sweat.  After all, life is a “box of chocolates” and American baby boomers had better get used to it.

 

Ekalaka Saturday Night

Note:  We all ask ourselves from time to time, “How did we get here?” The answers are as varied as we are.  We look back, rewinding the slender thread of human continuity, to examine our roots and marvel at the paths that got us to where we are today – in my case, an old lady married to an old man, fighting back at the hand we’ve been dealt. 

The following piece, dug from my writing attic, reflects one twist in our path leading to PSP.

 

The time was the early Fifties, and rural electricity had just been introduced to the Montana prairies.  Even though the switch flipped quickly, the ensuing changes would come slowly.  Oil lamps continued to supplement sparse electric bulbs, and iceboxes preserved perishable foods to be cooked later on wood-fueled stoves.  It would be many years before these vestiges of pioneer life would be stored away in attics, sold to antique dealers, or bequeathed to younger generations.

Back then, ranch folks didn’t have much money, or, some might argue, much sense – because they’d stay on those dusty plains through year after year of ravaging droughts – droughts which yielded unproductive grassland, underdeveloped sheep and low stock prices at market.  It was as if the land took on a life of its own, and determined to rid itself of the homestead settlers, interlopers who demanded so much of it.

But with each setback the stalwart ranchers dug their heels in deeper and looked to the next season for promises denied the one before.  It seemed as if nothing was as rooted to the land as the people themselves.  In spite of isolation and financial hardship, the ranchers would give glory to God, count their blessings and share their meager resources with those in greater need.

During my youth, a summertime favorite was the country dances at my grandparents’.  Organized social events were rare, so a family dance was an occasion to invite all the neighbors.  In the case of the Burches of Ekalaka, Montana, that meant pretty much all of southeastern Montana.  “Pop” Burch, my granddad, loved music.  It was central to his family and he instilled this love into his five daughters, so it followed naturally that the Burches frequently hosted a dance.

As soon as we’d learn of an upcoming dance, we kids could hardly contain our excitement.  When the big day would finally arrive, we’d scrub, brush, polish and preen in our hand-me-down finery before presenting ourselves for muster.  Then after receiving the nod, we’d dash down to our lookout by the cattle guard separating the ranch buildings from the pastures.  From there, we watched rattling cars and rickety pick-ups process single-file up the dry gumbo road, and as the vehicles rolled into clear sight, we’d loudly announce the names of each arrival.

On those summer nights, the sweet, fresh aroma of sage wafting below a star-swollen sky dispensed an intoxicating spell over all the merrymakers.  Under its influence men enjoyed a smoke and maybe something stronger than grandma’s homemade lemonade.  Young sweethearts held hands and stole kisses when they thought the elders weren’t looking.  Of course, the elders were always looking, and would cluck about the shamelessness of the young while rolling their eyes to heaven, thankful for the wisdom of old age.

Inside the house, a few men would roll back the braided rug to expose a worn hardwood floor, distressed after years of dances, giving it an “authentic” look.  Women would gossip while laying out a lavish potluck and keeping their ears cocked for the sounds of Pop tuning his fiddle.  Then the steel guitar and piano would chime in with discordant notes – a tuners’ symphony to heighten our excitement.

Suddenly, the old ranch house transformed into a magic dance hall where music alternately floated and cracked in the air.  Sad times and back-breaking work were replaced in those moments by the exhilaration of a dance shared with loved ones.  Oh, how I loved those sights and sounds, and so wished I could dance the two-step like those grizzled, old cowboys.  They never missed a beat as they clicked their heels and sang along with the band.

A traditional highlight of every Burch dance was my mother’s singing.  She was beautiful, as only beautiful mothers can be, and I could listen to her sing or recite poetry forever.  Dad would watch her in quiet admiration, always, I think, a little awestruck by this woman he had married.

As the night wore on, we kids would sink deeper and deeper into the woodwork, never wanting to let go of the festivities, and knowing that one false move would alert the adults, and we’d be packed off to bed.

Inevitably, though, the last waltz played, the last lamp was turned out, and we were shooed to bed with an authoritative clap and a stern reprimand about the lateness of the hour.  No matter.  We would sneak in a few more minutes of childhood giggles before succumbing to exhaustion.

Several decades have come and gone since those perfect summers — in the blink of an eye, it seems.  I’m now the age of my grandparents.  I have danced many a last waltz over the years, and bestowed many a stern lecture to my own precious children, now with children of their own.  But if I close my eyes and squeeze tightly, I can still see the country dancers whirling around the floor.  Soft strains of the fiddle echo in my mind, and time stands suspended as Pop and Grandma say good night once more to their guests.

Good night again, my sweethearts.  I’ll see you in my dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

An Irresistible Force Meets this Old House

When an irresistible force such as you
Meets an old immovable object like me
You can bet just as sure as you live

Something’s gotta give
Something’s gotta give
Something’s gotta give

Johnny Mercer, 1954

In this case, the” irresistible force” is my daredevil, scooter-driving husband, and the “old immovable object” is any door frame or wall in the house (and occasionally my car in the garage).  And the “something’s gotta give” aptly describes the collateral damage after each crash-and-burn turn.

I’ve reluctantly accepted that tire tread marks will be the standard on tile, carpet and laminate for the duration, but I haven’t wrapped my head around the destruction caused by the daily demolition derby within our house.  I hear a screech, thud or snap and run toward the noise, muttering, “What now?  Dear Lord, let it not be a weight-bearing wall.”

Most of the time, it’s a simple wipeout of the fresh paint.  Fresh paint?  Ah, yes.  I spent the better part of last year painting and modestly renovating this old house.  Hours spent stretching to the ceiling, ensuring coverage of every square inch, or bent over destroying my back while carefully trimming the baseboards.  I finished just prior to Dale’s diagnosis of Parkinsonism.  (Is irony funny, Lord?)

What I wouldn’t give to rewind the clock…(facepalm).  If I could, I would have invested in several gallons of Kevlar-infused paint to gird the doorframes against the aggressive and uncontrolled scooter driving of my husband.  After each episode, Dale manages a sheepish grimace accompanied by “I’m sorry.  It got away from me.  I can’t help it.”  Bless his heart.

And just like runaway inflation, “I’m sorry” doesn’t buy nearly the amount of redemption it used to, not when faced with the rising pile of paint chips, divots the size of thumb nails, or “keying” the length of a hallway wall by a handlebar that “got away from him.”  It may be okay for Ben Bernanke and the Fed to fall back on quantitative easing to “fix” their problems; I doubt that Home Depot would offer free paint to replace the heaps of chips on our floors.

When I look at the ravages left in Dale’s wake, I not only lament all the time and work of last year, but I shudder about all the repair time and work ahead of me.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  On a good day I wouldn’t trade my precious husband and our modest home for anything.  On a bad…well, we won’t go there.

Aha!  I just had a brilliant, to me anyway, idea for a new kind of caregiver respite.  Instead of a relaxing weekend away to recharge the batteries, I’d gladly stay home and supervise someone…anyone but me…who will tackle all the home repair necessitated by PSP.

So where in the world is Bob Vila when you need him??!

 

Strangers in a Grocery Aisle

The other morning, I had to run to the grocery store for a few items.  It was early and there were very few people in the store besides staff, so I was surprised when I reached my target, the dairy department, and found an older lady absently studying the cheeses.  She was riding one of the store scooters and wearing a nasal cannula attached to a small oxygen tank.  I needed to get by, but didn’t want to frighten her, so I softly said, “Excuse me please.”

She turned, immediately apologetic about blocking the aisle.  Then she complimented my top and asked where I’d gotten it because she, too, loves the “crayola” colors.  I told her, and added that she also looks lovely in pastels as evidenced by her white eyelet blouse and orchid slacks.

When I started to pull away, she placed a slender hand on my forearm and asked, “Do you have a minute?”  I looked down at the protruding veins contrasting with her hot pink nail polish, perfectly manicured.  Her snow white hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders and her pale blue eyes were enhanced by a light coat of mascara and pink lipstick.

I did a quick mental calculation of my morning schedule, then reproached myself for my hesitation.  I emphatically answered, “Yes, I do.”

The lady smiled and journeyed back in time to the years when her girls were young and her late husband would take them fishing, in spite of the girls’ protestations that they hated fishing.  She said her husband would chuckle at the girls’ reactions to live bait.  The fishers would cast their lines and chat away warm Saturday afternoons.

The girls talked about their friends in school, giggling about the “nasty” boys and sighing over the ones “to die for.”   They told Dad what they wanted for Christmas, what they wanted to be when they grew up, maybe, at least for today.  They confided their disappointment at losing a spelling bee and what they hoped Mom was cooking for dinner, which didn’t include fish.  They laughed and revealed a million other pixels in their fertile imaginations, all indelibly captured by Dad for recapping later to Mom.  Suddenly, one of the fishing-haters would interrupt excitedly, “I’ve got a bite!”

I listened, enrapt by this lady’s vivid reminiscences and teared up at the obvious joy the memories stirred.  To the casual observer, I made the lady’s day – but they would be wrong.  This sweet lady, my new nameless friend, allowed me a few minutes to step off the one-way train Dale and I are riding, and to glimpse the beauty still cherished by a life even as it nears the final curtain.   I felt refreshed as we took our leave, and I drove the mile and a half back to Dale in our home, cognizant of a new prism through which I’d assess our lives.

Thank you, dear Lord.

The Value in Being Needed

Many years ago, I read What Every Woman Should Know about Men by the late Dr. Joyce Brothers.  In it, she talked about the phases of relationships between men and women, and what changes occur in each of those phases.  For men over 60, she described them as needing their wives.  In fact, if I recall correctly, she said that not since they were small boys in need of their mothers, has their level of need been as great as it is in these “golden” years and, she added, there’s something to be said for being needed.

As a caregiver to a husband suffering from an incurable disease, his need for me may appear obvious.  He needs me to do those things which he physically cannot.  I become his arms and legs.  He also needs me to assist him in doing things for himself, e.g., fetching items he uses at his desk or work table.

Then there’s his speech.  As it deteriorates, his self-confidence has taken a nosedive, and I have become his voice.  I arrange appointments, argue with Medicare and converse with physicians on his behalf, looking frequently to Dale for confirmation.

And even while facing extraordinary challenges, Dale still needs to contribute to our marriage and our household.  Sometimes, all this takes is a nudge, like placing a bottle of “Round-up” on the floor of his scooter (after all, weeds don’t care how the executioner gets there), or bringing him a screwdriver to perform a “fix” on a door latch.  Like lots of married couples, he also needs to borrow my glasses when reading a menu.

All these things are important and I try to do my best to satisfy them, but there are other subtler, more meaningful needs I must fulfill.  Dale doesn’t ask, but I know my husband.  I have to convey daily through words and/or actions that my love is unconditional, and that I’ll be beside him forever in this world.  He needs to know that I think of him as “my guy.”  He hasn’t morphed from a man to a creature just because his body is breaking down.  He will always stand tall in my eyes, even if confined to a scooter or wheelchair.

Regardless of how much Dale needs me right now, it’s eclipsed by how much I need him.  Dr. Brothers didn’t address this aspect.  I love him and I can’t imagine life without him, so I don’t allow myself to go there.  How could I live without my rock, the one who grounds me when I engage in flights of fancy, like aspiring to become a female James Thurber.  He laughs with me when we watch comic Whoopi Goldberg trying to figure out Mick Jagger’s lyrics in Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and I cry with him every time we see John Wayne die in The Cowboys.

I happen to be addicted to world affairs and international politics, I can name all the major players in the Middle East, but couldn’t tell you who the mayor of Dallas is.  Dale knows, though, and I rely on that.  (I think he knows there’s a better chance that I might one day attend a meeting of the Dallas city council than an emergency session of the Knesset.)

Dale and I sleep in the same bed, and we like it that way, in spite of some occasional snoring from both of us.  I need to know that he’s beside me through the night, that I can touch him with a foot or an arm and be reassured that the night will pass in peace, and that we’ll awaken to another day to live and love together.  When the time comes for a hospital bed, we’ll have to get a queen-size at best, or a trundle at worst – for if either of us goes into “that good night” before the other, we will both need to be holding hands.

 

From Vietnam to Vesicare in 50 Short Years

Cuba • Cuban Missile Crisis • Kaneohe Bay • Marine Corps • Marine recruits • Marines • MCBH •

“It seems like only yesterday.”

It’s an expression as worn out as those of us old enough to utter it routinely.  But it captures our ethereal sense of time as we watch our major life events unfold.

It seems like only yesterday:

When a busload of nervous USMC recruits arrived at Parris Island, SC, with little to no idea what lay ahead.  How could they?  The majority were kids, 18, 19 years old.  With parental consent, some, like husband Dale, went headlong into the maelstrom known as “boot camp” at the age of 17.  They stepped off the bus and into a disciplined world that would sustain them throughout their lifetimes, or so they thought.

Dale’s a pretty tough guy.  His first taste of international intrigue occurred when President John F. Kennedy threw down the gauntlet to USSRs Nikita Khrushchev in 1962.  Khrushchev wanted to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, and Kennedy said no, not 90 miles off our shores.

For about a week that October, Dale floated around Cuba on the USS Francis Marion, one of many U.S. vessels ordered to quarantine Cuba against the delivery of the Russian nukes.  Fortunately, Khrushchev blinked first and the rest is history.

A short time later, the United States committed American troops to defend South Vietnam from its communist enemies in the north.  By then, war drums had been beating for close to a decade.  Dale’s unit arrived in Chu Lai, landing amphibiously, and set about building the air bases and communications networks for the fighters who would follow them.

The Vietnam War would become the most controversial and emotionally-charged military confrontation of the 20^th century.  But Dale was blessed.  He survived to live a full life, almost.

The Corps had honed his character and he forged his life around “Semper Fidelis” – always faithful to his God, his wife, his country and his principles.  Throughout his youth and middle age, Dale didn’t worry about growing old.  Who does?  If he thought about old age at all, it was simply the fleeting fairy tale — the Rockwellian notion of sitting on a front porch with a gray-haired Carla, taking in a sunset.

As the years began to fly by faster and faster, we were largely oblivious to the gradual changes in our bodies.  Youth had faded; stamina had waned, but our lives were unassailable.  A little Ben-Gay and Motrin, and we were ready for any challenge.

One day, however, changes accelerated.  No longer gradual.  The hallmarks of our lives seemed like only yesterday, but in that blink of an eye we found our bodies under siege.  The man who had built a number of latrines could no longer hold his water.

Dale was blindsided when he had to abort a shopping trip because he’d wet his pants.  He wished the earth would swallow him up before he died from embarrassment.

The young Marine of yesteryear never dreamt that one day he’d step off a commuter train from Dallas and fall flat on the ground, attracting a group of staring, whispering people who wanted to help the “poor old man.”  He considered himself lucky that a rolled-up catheter didn’t fall out of his pocket along with a bottle of Vesicare.

Behind a few gray hairs, a labyrinth of wrinkles and translucent skin, the same young, macho Marine who served his country honorably in time of war still resides.  I wish everyone could see him as I do.  If they did, they would honor him during his time of war with this disease, and always treat him with the dignity he deserves.

In another 50 years, or the next blink of an eye, we hope the array of Parkinson’s syndromes has gone the way of Polio, so that future Dales can live out the fairy tale on their front porches, talking about their pasts that “seemed like only yesterday” – with gray-haired Carlas by their side.

 

An Angel Touched Down on Friday

About mid-morning on Friday, I headed out for my weekly grocery shopping.  As I drove out of the driveway, I noted a car parked in front of the house, and a woman wearing a ball cap and carrying a hydrangea walking up to the front door.  I stopped, rolled down the passenger window, and yelled, “My husband’s disabled and won’t…”

The woman turned, shouting, “Carla! It’s Teri!” She started toward my car as I flipped the gear into park.

Teri and I had sung in the choir together before I’d left the Catholic Church.  I hadn’t seen her in years, but we’d kept tabs on Facebook, so her appearance didn’t shock me.  She wore the ball cap to cover the peach fuzz on her scalp, and a baggy shirt to camouflage the concave chest where her breasts had been.  She leaned through the car window, “I read your blog on grief this morning and it moved me so much I had to do something to cheer you and Dale today.”

Words caught in my throat.  I got out of the car, rounded the hood and hugged this dear lady.  Then I held her shoulders and looked into her blue eyes welling with tears and said, “You are still so beautiful.”

She told me she would be returning to work soon, part time, and that her husband is a wonderful caregiver.  We chatted for a couple more minutes, this angel and I, before parting.

I cried all the way to the grocery store, astounded by this generous soul who had been through so much personal suffering herself, yet whose heart spilled with love and empathy for others.  I thought about those who often wonder “What would Jesus do in a given situation.”  And then I thought, “Teri just did it.”