Serving Time

It is amazing to me the rights that we take for granted in this country. Women have the right to vote, to dress how they please, to work in whatever field they choose, to attend college, to choose who they date and/or marry, to attend the church of their choice or not attend a church at all, to participate in sports, to have or not have children, to go about their daily lives with little interference from the government. There are still inequities in the workplace, women still are not equal in many churches, crimes against women are still a societal problem, but overall women in America have more freedom than so many women in so many countries. I could not imagine living in a society where women are still considered subserviant to men, where marriages are arranged, sometimes at alarmingly early ages, where women have no right to be educated, where they have no power and no protection in their own homes, where they are considered property as opposed to human beings with the same fundamental rights as men.

After reading A Thousand Splendid Suns and Snowflake and the Secret Fan I was struck by how easy it would be for our rights to slowly slip away if we are not vigilant. With a mostly male Congress laws could easily be enacted that would set women back decades or centuries. Could you imagine living in a country where you are not allowed out of the house without covering from head to toe, without being escorted by a male, where the police consider that what happens in a man's home, even beating and raping his wife/wives and daughters, is his business? Can you imagine being married off against your will at the tender age of fourteen or even younger? Can you imagine watching your daughters grow up in a world where they are not allowed an education, ensuring that they will be trapped in this cycle of subhuman, subserviant obedience? Can you imagine how it would feel for women living in this type of society, waiting, hoping, for someone, anyone, to save them from their own government?

Now that my own children are grown and I have more time to devote to a cause, I am looking for an organization that will allow me to help work for the rights of women around the world. I don't want to be passive about this, I want to make a difference. It has been simmering in me for years. I want to ensure that my granddaughter will be able to grow up and watch her own children live in a free society. So if you have suggestions for organizations that are proven to doing good, honest work to enhance women's lives around the globe I would like your input.

Trying to Go Green

I was able to get my flower pots filled with annuals and my husband planted a few shrubs this weekend. We still have a lot of work to do. As much as I sometimes enjoy having a large yard, almost an acre, I do long for a house with a small yard that wouldn't take up so much of our free time to maintain. After visiting my daughter in London and seeing the size of her long, narrow backyard garden I have decided that would be the perfect size lot for my husband and me. It would be large enough to have a grassy lawn for my grandchildren when they come to visit, a small patio for barbecues, enough room for a hot tub, and gardens along both sides. Two hours a week for each of us to maintain it and the rest of our time would be free to do as we please. In the meantime, I need some gardening tips and suggestions from those of you with green thumbs. My flower beds are looking rather wild and I am not even sure what all the plants are. I have been known to pull out what I thought were weeds only to find out after the fact that I had pulled up all the Black-eyed Susans. Sometimes I feel like plowing the whole bed up and starting over so I would know exactly what was in it and what shouldn't be there. Now that I have lost two trees in the side lot next to the highway I need to replace them with something, but I am struggling with the decision. Maybe I should have a garden party and invite all the green thumbed people I know so I can get their advice. Help!

Hooray for J

It's Saturday late morning and I have to get my rear in gear. Household chores await. So another 6 CD's to make the tasks more pleasant. Today is J day:

John Prine
Jewel
Janis Joplin (double whammy)
Janiva Magness
Johnny Lang
Jimi Hendrix

I hope to get a lot done, including potting the plants on the porches (does that sound like a tongue twister or is it just me?) I will have flowers even if I have to do it in the rain. Speaking of that.......never mind, that's another story!

Have a happy Saturday!

He Ain't Heavy....

As previously posted my father-in-law is now back in his own home. Both my husband and I will be making the drive to Indianapolis every week to help, hubby on Sunday evening through Monday evening, and me on Tuesday mornings through Wednesday evenings. I have rearranged my work schedule to allow this since all his sisters work Monday through Friday and can only help on the weekends or evenings. One sister-in-law has voiced concern that we will wear ourselves out doing this every week. I have tried to convince her that I will be fine because I can live on six hours of sleep per night and I really don't mind driving. (Thanks Mom for passing that trait down.) When I am in my car I have time to think, to listen to music, and to enjoy the scenery. With cell phone at hand I have time to call my family and friends and catch up on their lives. The ninety minute drive usually goes by fairly quickly. Once there, I really don't have much to do except assist with moving my father-in-law from bed to chair to sofa to table, assisting with meals, and sitting with him so my mother-in-law can take a break. So I have time to read and watch television or even catch up on some of my work if I take it with me. I am considering buying a laptop so I can write on my blog or work on my book in the evenings after my in-laws are in bed, since I am a night-owl and have trouble falling asleep without a television in the bedroom.

While there this past Tuesday I helped my father-in-law into the wheelchair and took him out for a walk around his neighborhood. They have lived in this retirement condo community for less than three years. It was a beautiful day. We stopped to say hello to a neighbor working in his garden and my father-in-law knew his name, even though he hadn't seen him for several months. As we walked past the mailboxes lined up all in a row he wanted to pull over so he could get the mail. I was surprised that he remembered which box was theirs. I was curious to see if he would remember his way around so I let him tell me which direction to turn. As we slowly looped around the pond an elderly woman passed us up. I stopped to direct my father-in-law's attention to the ducks milling around the pond but he admonished me to "hurry up and pass that lady". True to form he couldn't be outdone by a woman on foot! So we quickened the pace and sped past her. As we approached one corner we stopped to take in the wonderful scent of lilacs drifting softly through the air. He saluted the American flag flapping in the breeze. Then he directed me back to his home. He may not be aware of all around him but he has many moments that tell us he is still in there somewhere.

When I arrived back home late that evening my husband took me in his arms and said he couldn't thank me enough for helping out. But I cannot imagine any other way. I love my husband and I would do anything for him. That extends to helping him deal with this tremendous burden of caring for aging parents. We must do what needs to be done when it comes to family and friends when they need us most.

Tidy Tidbit

Playlist for the day while I clean house and do laundry:

Bob Dylan
James Taylor
Harry Manx
John Prine
Carol King
David Bromberg

6 CDs should be enough time to get it done, I hope.

Tough Love

My father-in-law is back in his home. And he is glad to be there. After his 80th birthday party last Saturday my mother-in-law took him home instead of back to the Alzheimer's facility he had been in for the past few months. He is so frail that he can no longer walk or stand on his own. He is so thin that you can see every bone in his body. Absolutely no muscle mass left. He has been withering away to nothing in that center. The family has a very tough job ahead of them in order to keep him at home. It is so important for all of us to understand the significance of what is going to be the toughest test of love for the person they call Dad and GrandDad. My mother-in-law is going to need help every single day to manage him at home. Hospice has been called in and medical equipment has been delivered to make maneuvering him easier. But the burden of his daily care will fall on the shoulders of family and friends. We are working on a schedule to spread that burden so no single family member is overwhelmed. I know from experience what lies ahead and it will take patience, courage, strength, and forgiveness to get through this without causing a breakdown in the family ties. Some may feel that they just can't do this emotionally but they will have to muster the strength and do it anyway. Some who live a greater distance away may not come to help as often but will have to help in other ways, organizing the family or calling in other resources. For my pregnant daughter who lives abroad with her two-year old it will be impossible to come home to help but phone calls, emails, video clips, and letters of support will be uplifting for my in-laws. Some have families with young children and busy schedules but children should be taught that they cannot always come first, that they may have to spend one summer of their young lives without playing a particular sport, that they have their whole lives ahead of them to pursue their interests while we have only this short window of time to repay all that has been bestowed upon us by this man of honor and integrity. It is time to dig in our heels and get to the toughest job we will ever encounter. When he is gone I can guarantee that everyone will look back on this experience and be glad that they were able to be a part of it, to shower him with the love and care that he deserves.

Undecided

Today is primary election day and I will be voting before I head off to work. I have been fairly undecided how I will cast my vote, at least for the presidential race. Ideally, my candidate of choice would be a moderate conservative or a conservative liberal.

I would prefer someone who will be tough on illegal immigration issues because we need to secure our borders in this dangerous world. We need to make changes in our immigration laws to allow more people in legally who want to come here to work and make a better life for their families. I do not think that illegals should be given a free pass because that flies in the face of citizens and legal immigrants who abide by the laws of our country.

On the issues of Iraq, I want a candidate who will not rush to bring our troops home and leave that country in worse chaos. Right or wrong, we started this mess and we need to follow through to assure that our servicemen and the Iraqi people have not suffered for naught.

I would like to see our nation's healthcare crisis addressed. I know first hand what is lacking in our system. I see patients every day who are given free healthcare, good healthcare, because they fall into the low income category necessary. The working poor and the middle class are the ones who suffer the most. Our senior citizens who have worked hard, sometimes with two jobs at once, to support their families and educate their children, are faced with having to spend down every dime and sell off all their assets before they are able to get assistance with the enormous cost of caring for their spouses with critical or chronic illness. This plummets them into poverty very quickly. It is the shame of our nation. We need to find a solution that is not income driven, at least when a catastrophic condition exists. More and more seniors will find themselves in this position as time goes on because families are smaller and spread out all over the nation.

I believe we should have as little government interference in our lives as possible. We should not have a Congress who believes that only they are capable of thinking for all. And they should all have to live by the laws that they enact. Maybe they, like in so many other professions, should be held legally liable for the laws they pass if they have a negative impact on the well-being of our nation.

I want a candidate who believes in the freedom of choice: in partners, in reproduction, in religion, in end of life decisions. The pursuit of happiness is not possible if government dictates what can and can't be done with these very personal issues.

I believe a candidate should work hard to unite the people of this nation, one who can motivate our citizens to get involved and work toward solutions that are reasonable, fair, and not a tremendous tax burden on the backs of the working people. Someone who will champion the rights of women, who will work to solve our racial inequities, and fight to keep our manufacturing jobs in this country.

With this said I am off to vote. I will be choosing a candidate that I believe is the lesser of all evils. That is a sad statement. That I would vote for the candidate that I think will do the least harm as opposed to the most good because that is all there is on the ballot is the reality of our times.

Peace!

Hell on Earth

Tomorrow I will be heading north to visit with my husband's family and friends to celebrate my father-in-law's 80th birthday. It will be a melancholy event because he is rather frail and has been in a home for Alzheimer's patients for the past several months. I know he would hate the situation he is in right now if he were fully aware or could truly express his wishes. In October last year he had a sudden change in personality after some type of vascular event that his physician could not specifically identify. He was admitted to the hospital and then moved to the geriatric neuropsychiatry ward. There he was given an assortment of powerful psychotropic drugs to "control" his behavior. He was reduced to a zombie-like state with his head hanging like a lead weight upon his slumped shoulders and his normally steady walk became a slow unbalanced shuffle. He lost bladder control and, more importantly,his dignity. I was horrified to see him like this and I tried to question the nurses about the wisdom of giving someone who rarely even took aspirin such a cornucopia of drugs. It seemed rather counterintuitive for the situation. My mother-in-law was completely overwhelmed emotionally and physically and felt she had no real choice but to put her trust in the physician's plan of treatment. So for almost two months my father-in-law remained a virtual prisoner in that geriatric unit, subjected to a myriad of different medications that seemed to do little to improve his mental agility. He lost weight and his eyes took on that hollow glazed effect of a drug addict. He was lost inside himself without a way back to reality. I suppose the drugs had the effect the physician was expecting as he became "manageable" and child-like, hence, allowing him to be placed in the Alzheimer's home where he has resided for the past five months.

Walking into this home is like walking into bizarro world. Nothing is real. There are outdoor scenes painted on the walls all along the hallways. Wooden fish hang by velcro on a painted pond. The residents can sit on the bench overlooking this scene and imagine they are outdoors, or wonder why they landed back in kindergarten. A painted American flag and war planes ornament the slightly cloudy sky-blue walls in one area allowing for memories of a past war or time spent in service to our country, sweet memories of fighting off enemies in battles past. In another area there is a cradle and a doll next to a rocking chair where residents can pretend they are holding some family member that they may never see again or who has already grown. There are no clocks and no calendars to keep the residents in the present for those lucid moments between medication rounds. Residents wander aimlessly around these miserable halls, in and out of each other's rooms, constantly searching for something they will never find, perhaps a familiar face or the nearest exit. They all seem to be so overmedicated, shuffling along in a never- ending cycle of confusion. I am no expert on issues related to Alzheimer's but it seems to me that the staff in this home should be focusing on keeping the residents in the present as much as possible. Would it not make sense to have calendars and clocks, to talk about current events even if they don't remember five minutes later, to have a schedule of activities to stimulate the body, soul, and mind, and to have a normal-looking environment for them. Instead of pretending to look at a pond or a golf course wouldn't it be better if they had an outdoor area large enough to allow all of them to go outside into the fresh air every day that the weather is decent? We all know what it feels like to be cooped up indoors for a few days. We call it stir-crazy. Imagine weeks, months, or years for these people with no hope for rescue from the absolute boredom. It's no wonder they are confused. A scene from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" comes to mind, when Jack Nicholson sneaks all the psych patients out of their prison and takes them to a baseball game, and I wish there was a way to give these residents a bit of reality for just one day. One tiny little resident name Chloe grabbed my arm when I walked past her as she was pushing her walker along from room to room. She looked up at me with her vacant eyes and whispered "Help me". I didn't know what she needed-help finding her room, help walking, or perhaps it was a plea to help her find a way out of the hell she was in. Every time I visit there I am thankful that I am able to walk back out.

My father-in-law's physician has finally agreed to slowly decrease the strength of one of his psychotropic medications. As a result, my father-in-law has become more alert and able to participate a bit more in conversations. He smiles more and is more appropriately animated. He recognizes everyone that visits and is acutely aware that the other residents in the home are not normal people. My husband and I picked him up on Easter Sunday to take him home for a family gathering and he recognized the streets and knew it was the way home. He also was aware that he had not been home for months. As he sat on the sofa with the dog in his lap he welled up with tears. He was happy to be back where he belonged, even if only for the day. At one of his doctor appointments recently he asked my sister-in-law for the date and day of the week because he remembered that the doctor would ask him those questions. He continues to have good days and bad days. He has lost a tremendous amount of weight and is very weak. My mother-in-law is hoping to bring him home for good if he improves enough that she is able to manage him with some assistance from family, friends, and home health. She hates that he is in that place and feels he would do better at home.

I personally believe he has been misdiagnosed. When I see him close his eyes during a prayer, smile or laugh at funny stories, cry when listening to stories of times past, and light up when he sees his grandchildren walk in, I just can't believe this is the behavior of an Alzheimer's patient. Maybe I am in denial but maybe there was a different reason for his change in mental status last fall. Perhaps another stroke that he has been slowly healing from. I don't agree with physician's doping up fragile patients who are already confused. They become empty shells of the people they once were. My father-in-law spent his whole life giving to others - to his family, friends, church, and strangers. He was the most optimistic, friendly person you could ever meet. He looked for the good in everyone. He has offered up his home to host foreign exchange students, he has picked up hitchhikers and taken them home for family dinners and offered them advice on how to improve their lives. He has served on many boards and has washed dishes at church functions. His helping hand has touched the lives of many, many people. He was not materialistic and spent money wisely. If you asked him how he was, his response was that he was grateful...grateful for the blessings in his life. He must wonder how he got to be in the place he is now, why he can't be home where he can be with his family, where he took a wrong turn to end up in living hell. I pray he comes home soon.