Riding Shotgun

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (In the most non-gendered use of the masculine pronoun, of course.)

I'm used to driving.

I've long had this "thing" about control, and driving suits me just fine because, frankly, I trust myself more than I do anyone else, including Him. I have a sense of my vehicle: how wide it is, how it handles, where my margins are, what speed is appropriate, and what kind of space I need around me to move into a new place in a different lane.

I'm a calculating and safe driver. Safe.

So the other day when I said my customary phrase, "Who's driving?" without really meaning it, and He said, "I am," ...well, I was naturally uneasy. He got us on the freeway, and I felt myself tensing up as we sped up. I'm just not used to riding shotgun.

We were whizzing past other vehicles, and it seemed like they were awfully close to me. Too close. I'm not used to that.

"That lane is open," I told Him. I meant for Him to move into it.

"Uh-huh," He said.

"Seems like we're going awfully fast," I said.

"You go pretty fast, too," He said. "It's just because I'm driving, and not you."

I pondered this for a bit. "I guess so," I said. "It just seems dangerous."

"It is dangerous out here," He said. "You have to keep your eyes open. People are thoughtless, reckless. They have a way of flying across each other's lanes and smacking into each other."

I shuddered. "Every time I get in a traffic jam behind a wreck, I think, 'If I'd headed out a little sooner, that could've been me.'"

"Yep," he said, deftly changing lanes as we came up behind someone moving slowly in the fast lane. We sailed on by. Some people are so unaware. Or overly cautious. Or don't know the negotiating rules on the freeway. I forgot to look at the license plate to see if that guy was an out-of-towner who doesn't know how things work around here.

A motorcycle whizzed past us on the left and then cut across right in front of us. Stupid guy. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He was calm and quick, hitting the brake and avoiding what would have been a deadly collision. Certainly for the motorcyclist, and possibly for us as well.

"Whew," I remarked. "I did NOT see that coming! Yikes!" I patted myself on the front of my left shoulder. "My heart is still in stress mode. I'm glad You were driving and not me. I'm not sure I would have managed that as well." I looked back at the freeway ahead. The motorcyclist was vanishing into the distance, clearly heading for disaster with some other driver. "It still feels more scary for me not to be driving, though," I said. "I think I'd rather be behind the wheel."

"It looks different when you're riding shotgun, doesn't it?" He said.

It does.

What's Left

Forty-one weeks and five days after my mom died, I held my dad's hand as he too breathed his last, at the age of 90. I'm not ready to write about those moments yet. It's been just two months and at the same time it seems like an eon.

In the meantime, I am the older child and there are things to take care of. I have realized that bereavement leave is not for taking care of yourself. It's for doing the myriad of things that must be done in the wake of the initial loss: death certificates, back-and-forth dealings with the cremation center, calls to medical, retirement and social security administrators, bank account dealings and alerting attorneys that it's time to work on the trust.

And then there is the task of dealing with the tangible things that are left. I have been struck by what a pitiful pile is left when a person dies: clothing, books, furniture, shoes, files, photo albums, grooming implements, knick-knacks. It all seems so empty without the owner there to inhabit the space. And yet it takes emotional energy as it calls for decision after decision about things that were meaningful to the person you loved so dearly.

As we worked our way through some of my parents' things last Sunday (in so doing, trying to reclaim our dining room for use), it started to look like a thrift store had exploded in our home. And indeed, a thrift store figures largely into our work on all of this.  My husband said to me, "You know, there are probably thousands of dollars going out the door."

He's right.

My brother and I have saved the few things we want. Our households were established and filled long ago, and our tastes differ from those of my parents. Yet there remains a great deal of value left in the things we don't want.

My mom had a way of walking into a shop and going straight for the most expensive thing there. My dad liked certain kinds of toys, some instrumental but mostly electronic. We're figuring out what to do with the tools, printers, laptops, iPad. The accordion went to a young medical student who had always wanted one. The harmonicas are going to a religious bluegrass group. My mom's carved desk got picked up by the neighbor who for a living clears out estate belongings that people's children don't want. A bedroom set went to a community outreach to help a family in poverty. Loads of clothes and bedding have gone to the church thrift shop.

Husband commented that we could sell some things.

"You know," I responded. "I never saw my parents ever sell anything that had belonged to them. Ever. They gave things away if they didn't want them any longer." That's mostly true, I realized later. They did sell their last car to a friend...with my help. But they were unfailingly all about generosity and giving throughout their lives, rather than trying to recoup value for themselves. I'm inclined to do the same.

Husband sees my point; trying to sell the things would be more stressful and time-consuming than simply giving the treasures to those with need and/or interest.

You see, it boils down to this: It's all things. Just things. That's all that's left. They're oddly familiar objects but they aren't what I long for. My heart wants my parents. I miss them so very much.

Escape Route

I’m not sure where such a strong drive for self-preservation came from, that I need to have an escape route ready. 

That’s my van in the above photo, parked at the end of a U-shaped driveway in front of a senior center where I was speaking recently. The parking spot was deliberately chosen so that I could just hop in, back out and shoot straight down the road past theose green trees in the middle.

This is no unusual thing. I tend to park on the street facing the direction by which I will leave. In a parking lot, my vote goes to the space near a quick exit. The idea is to have my escape pod ready so I don’t have to turn it around, drive through a long driveway, or navigate obstacles when I leave. I make sure to plan a departure route that encounters fewer stoplights and stop signs, and think of alternate ways I can go if blocked. I don’t want to be cornered.

The quick getaway makes me feel secure. It's always been my habit to plan an escape route, based on what-ifs:

• What if I don’t like the date I’m with? Let me set up the date so I meet him there, so I have my car with me as a potential getaway.
• What if my date is boring or offensive? Let me eat something with corn or milk (my food allergies) and then plead that I’m feeling flu-ey, and cut the time short to go home and lie down.
• What if we have an earthquake and I can’t get home? The earthquake kit is always present in the back of my van, and I think of ways to get home that don’t require passage over bridges that might be down.
• What if I lose my job? Let me keep my teaching credential current so I can still return to classroom teaching.
• What if there is no one to take care of me when I’m old? Let me set aside money now, so that I have enough to support my stay in a nice senior care facility for a number of years if need be.

I’ve realized that the “I’m Outta Here” option is my go-to whenever I feel discomfort or threat of any kind. Fight or flight, right? I’m not much of a fighter, so I make sure the flight route is clear.

It’s not always the most constructive way to live. 

The Grey Blanket

Just over four weeks ago, my mother passed away at the age of 91. There is no age when it's not too soon to lose a mother, not even at 91 years and a full life. Despite her Alzheimer's disease, and whether she knew my relationship to her or not on a given day, she always lit up when I walked into the room, always loved me. Okay, maybe she didn't love me the one time she yelled at me in the hospital to "get out," but that was my "Alzheimer's mom," not my real mom.

In real life, grief doesn't work like it does in the textbooks. Forget Kubler-Ross's stages. I haven't been in denial or angry or bargaining. Just very, very sad. Overwhelmed at times by the magnitude of the loss. The best I can describe it is to say that it's a heavy grey woolen blanket that weighs down my worldview and my spirit. Sometimes it lifts and sometimes it's just there, like a fog around me. I can function to take care of the must-do's in life, but my "joyful woman" spirit isn't functioning very well right now.

At one point while I was driving over to see my dad a week ago, the immensity of the loss overcame me and I nearly blacked out as I was driving the freeway, sobbing. The closing in of the darkness from the outsides of my vision, along with some dizziness, scared me so badly that I will not let myself cry while driving anymore. I didn't know that grief could crush a sturdy woman like me to that extent; I've never in my life been close to blacking out from anything at all.

So that's how life is.

Being Schooled

Considering I’m a lifelong educator, I surely have been “schooled” a lot in my life. I can remember every one of them clearly. I will spare you the details of most of them, particularly those that still sting, because frankly, I come out looking bad in every single one of them.

“Being schooled” happens when someone calls you out on something you have said or done, regardless of your intent or thought process, that you shouldn’t have said or done. You try to defend yourself, you rationalize, you chalk it up to your ignorance or intent or well-meaning carelessness, but if you’re honest with yourself, you “shouldna dun it.”

If you want to defend me on some of the examples I’m about to share, hold your horses! It’s my life and my education. I’ve thought through and agonized about each one ad nauseum, and I know that “being schooled” was precisely what I needed in that instance. I share these to get you thinking about times you have been schooled, and about the grand education God gives us via other people throughout life.

The first time I remember getting schooled was when I came home from high school in Singapore for my first vacation. It was the first time my mom had seen me after several months of intensive peer influence without her presence. I still remember where I stood in the kitchen as she told me off for having just used the word “crap.” It was a low-class word, she said, not befitting of the kind of young lady I had the potential to become. My mama was right. I have rarely ever--and only deliberately with a certain calculated purpose--used that word since then. Schooled.

Another instance during my high school years: I had the distinct shame of being pulled aside by the principal’s wife and told with some energy that I was out of line for speaking ill about another student who would be joining the student body but had not yet arrived. Reputation is a precious thing, she told me, and I had no right to steal that from this boy. I was poisoning the well for him. She was right; I had zero defense. Ouch. Schooled.

As a college professor I was surprised to hear that a student had taken an intense dislike to me. I got her into my office to ask how we had gotten into this place. She recalled that a few months back, I had informed her casually as I met her on the sidewalk, that I’d looked over her program and it looked like she would not be able to graduate that year as expected. She was devastated. My “by-the-way” approach left her feeling disrespected, alone and unvalued. I never did manage to climb out of that hole with her; with some people a thoughtless action can set a trajectory that you can’t recover from. Schooled.

And then there was the time that I used the word “pickaninny” when I was saying something. As a child I’d heard it in an Australian song about aborigines, and thought it was such a cute term. A dear friend privately drew me aside and informed me that the term is racist. At first I was taken aback and resistant. When you’re being schooled you have to work these things over, and there is no escaping the reality of another person’s offense. I had to realize that just because I had thought a word meant something cute, doesn’t mean that to everyone else. And in fact, the word is offensive. Schooled.

You may be a better person than I when someone confronts you about your words and actions. You may instantly accept it and apologize and never do it again. Not me. My knee-jerk reaction is to resist, to excuse myself, to explain it away, to rationalize, to defend myself, or to go passive aggressive in some way. “Being schooled” feels personal. Well, it is, I suppose.

I wish I could say, as did one of my direct reports to me not so long ago, “Thank you for confronting me about this. It means you care about me, and I really appreciate it.” (What a classy response.) 

Nope, I’m far less gracious than that. When someone is good enough to “school” me, they typically have to leave it sitting there with me awhile, so it can work its way past my defenses. But I eventually get around to apologizing and changing my ways, because I want to be a better person. Not only that, I really do—as my faculty member did—appreciate the true caring that goes into schooling me. If you love me enough to address my character as viewed through my actions, you really love me.

Let’s just hope you don’t have to school me too often. Because being schooled is exhausting work.

Poppy Peepin'

It's been a long time since I last posted. The winter quarter (speaking in academic terms) has been brutal. On top of my regular work I have been teaching a course for a colleague who is out fighting cancer. And I was bringing up a new doctoral program and participating in all the interviews of applicants for it. And I was fighting the university's CFO and Provost on some budget issues related to the new program; their philosophy of budget differs greatly from mine, and I see it as an ethical issue, so I have refused to budge. And on the deepest emotional front, I was signing my mom onto hospice care per the doctor's recommendation, and making a field trip to the nearby cemetery to learn about arrangements and costs, because the hospice paperwork requires that.

I have learned much. 

And there has been neither the emotional reserve or time block to write, which I so much love to do, so there you go.

Sunday mornings tend to be a wee bit slower, so I'm going to take the opportunity to share with my readers a collection of pictures from our recent poppy-peeping trip to Walker Canyon, about 15 miles from our home. The California rains this winter have not only replenished the reservoirs, they've provoked a showing of rare effusion in terms of flowers on the hills and in the deserts. And people are heading out in droves to enjoy them, creating traffic jams all over the place. No gripes, though; this is such a healthy way to spend a day.

It's a good thing we left home early, as there were only about 10 people in the first blanket of poppies we came to. By the time we left there were five times that many.

The highway you see in the distance goes to Las Vegas and Utah to the north, and San Diego to the south.

These sweet little faces are the emblem of California flora. They just get prettier and prettier, the more of them you get together in one place.

We hiked on up the access road into the canyon and rounded the first bend to see a frosting of poppies covering many surfaces ahead of us.

One of the best things about flower color, I think, is when you put complementary colors together. Here's the complement to poppies.

It's like someone pulled out a paintbrush and placed big sweeping strokes of orange on the hillsides.

While husband employed the "big guns," I shot with my phone camera. I do pretty well with the one he's using, but I think it suits his detail-loving temperament to be the guy using the Nikon when we're traveling together.

See what I mean? Complementary colors. Oh, the joy of this feast for the eyes!

Walking further up the fire road we came upon interesting vistas like this one, with the poppies creating almost a highlighting to the folds of the hills.

The southern California landscape is typically dry and golden at best. It was so lovely to see all the green as a background for the blooms.

Nothing prettier than backlit blossoms!

The frilly poppy leaves create a balance of texture for the flowers, I think. Nature is so often just perfect.

Here we are, the happy poppy-peepers--Husband sporting his slouch hat and me sporting my usual chia-pet vibe, de rigeur for getting out and walking together. Our souls full after a couple of hours out in the hills, we headed for home.

The Tantrum

When my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, I approached the news the way I have approached things for many years of my life--as an academic. Read up on it. Find out about it. Ask questions. Google it. Observe.

The three best resources I found on Alzheimer's were "The 36 Hour Day" by Nancy Mace, "Creating Moments of Joy" by Jolene Brackey, and the blog Alzheimer's Reading Room, which is a nearly daily wealth of information and tips about the disease and caregiving. That's a trio of resources I recommend to anyone who has a family member with the disease.

From all my reading I thought I was aware and prepared for each stage of the disease, including the times when the person becomes difficult or anxious. I forgot about the difference between intellectual readiness and emotional readiness. You can know that something is coming, and how it's going to be, and research every detail of it in advance, but it doesn't prepare your heart for the emotions of the event.

I knew that eventually my mom would forget who someone was in the family. When that first person was my dad, to whom she has been devoted all my life, I cried. Couldn't she have forgotten some other relative first? Why the most important person in her life? It hit me hard.

Yesterday dished up another milestone: I saw my mother in a full-blown fit of obstreperousness and hatefulness. And I was included in those who were the brunt of it. I knew her caregivers had dealt with some tough times, and the nurse at the hospital had told me that morning my mom had been combative and had yanked out her IV. But personally I'd not seen anything more than grumpiness from my mom; she usually is happy to see me and sweetens up and calms down when I walk in.

So yesterday morning after I arrived at the hospital, the nurse wanted to check on a dark spot she had glimpsed on my mom's backside. She asked me to help get my mom to allow that.

And there it all began. When I asked my mom to let the nurse take a look, her face twisted up and she immediately went into a full-blown tantrum. I was shocked. "I will not." "Leave me alone." "Get out of here."  Her body was rigid and there was no way, nohow, that my mom was going to comply. Not with anyone.

I tried logic with an explanation of why the nurse needed to see the spot, voicing what might happen to her health if it got worse. I tried getting stern as she used to do with me when I was a kid. I tried the word "Please." Each of those was a mistake. They made her even madder. I should have known from the reading I've done. Leave well enough alone and come back later. It's not that urgent. But I didn't.

The nurse and I briefly conferred and decided it didn't have to happen right now. Mama was in a pout, and hearing us talk about it made her even madder. She pinned me with a hateful glare--something I have never, ever in all my life caught from her. My beautiful, always-professional Mama had turned into a horrible person, and I didn't really understand how that had happened, nor why I couldn't change it.

And then I confess, I deepened my error of trying to use logic and words. Once the nurse was gone, I leaned close to my mom quietly and asked, with some emotion, "Mama, why are you being so ugly? I have never seen you do this before. When you were a doctor and you asked a patient to do something, you expected them to comply. Now you are the patient, but you won't let the medical people do what they need to do. I don't understand that."

Oh, that just made her spitfire angry. And maybe sad, too, now that I think of what I saw. She glared at me. If looks could kill, I would've been dead on the floor. She was wordless again for a moment, but oh-so-angry.

That's when I felt the tears start to flow. I moved away and sat down on a chair in the corner, sniffling. It was all just so awful. The nurse returned, and we discussed the situation, with me crying and telling her this wasn't like my mom, and that she had always been such a professional woman. Better to talk in front of someone than behind their back, right? Oh, my; I was so dumb! Not smart to do this in front of an Alzheimer's patient in full rebellion.

"Stop talking about me." My mom hollered. "You get out of here. Both of you. Just get out. Go talk somewhere else. Leave me alone." Her ability to articulate her thoughts, which has been diminishing over the past year, was suddenly back in full force. And at high volume.

The nurse and I looked at each other and agreed silently that we'd move out into the hallway.

And now I am left licking my wounds. I've always been able to work my mom around to acquiescence and cheering up better than anyone, even through this whole disease. No more. Alzheimer's disease takes your loved one away, and that's sad. But I think what is even sadder in this moment, is that I'm understanding that it not only takes them away, but it can turn them into someone else, someone quite monstrous. And frankly, I want to flee far away when she gets like that, to pretend that it's not happening and my mom can't become monstrous. It's easier to bear up with a mom who has always been kind and helpful and professional and is now quietly fading, than it is to bear up with a mom who is now wailing and roaring and shouting aggressively for me to get out.

I don't have any other thoughts right now. Just dealing with the heartbreak.