Filmed in Austin, Texas
Filmed in Austin, Texas
I am a sailor.
You are a dancer.
We sail and we dance along.
I, to the beat of the thundering waves.
You, to the waves of your own heartstrings’ song.
Living to me is the life of the sea.
And the life that I live is just where I belong.
I steer by the stars and I rise with the sun
While you dance and you sing to your own heartstrings’ song.
I won’t ask you to wait.
You can’t ask me to change.
But I hope that our hearts will beat strong.
Mine, to the crash of the thundering waves.
Yours, to the time of your own heartstrings’ song.
For true love can be like a ship on the sea.
It can sail between loving hearts parted so long.
So I’ll steer by your passion, you’ll dance to my touch
And we’ll thrill to the tune of our own heartstrings’ song.
©Patricia Rose Grigadean, 1993
Rolling over in bed on a hot summer night,
Feeling the ceiling fan caress my back with a gentle breeze,
And the delicious delight of coolness tickling my sweat-kissed skin,
I recognize the combined miracle of perspiration and evaporation
And wonder how anyone could doubt “Intelligent Design”.
©Patricia Rose Grigadean, 2015
As I was leaving Beverly, one of my favorite dementia patients, I told her I was going to the beach for my birthday, and wouldn’t be coming next week. Seeing her slight frown, I said, “But I’ll bring you a seashell.” So a few days later I found myself at the shore, searching for shells – for Beverly and for other dementia people I visit and sing with every week. Seeing a particular shell, I’d think, Beverly would like those colors, or, Mary might enjoy how this one feels. And I went home with a bag of shells.
The first person I gave a shell to was Barbara, who has become a dear friend and feels almost like a co-conspirator because of her quick wit and delightfully quirky and mischievous personality. (You would probably never suspect she had dementia unless you spent a lot of time with her.) So it didn’t surprise me when, as I gave her the shell and told her I’d picked it up for her at the beach, she looked at me with mock outrage and said, “I can’t believe you went to the beach and didn’t take me with you!” Turns out she is – as I somehow suspected – a beach person like me. As she lovingly stroked and examined the shell, she told me about her childhood in Pennsylvania where months of each year were spent at the beach. And about later, waiting impatiently for her own children to be old enough to take to the beach, because she so wanted to give them that experience.
The next person I happened to see was Jay. He looked thoughtfully at his shell and started reminiscing about taking his family to the beach in California, but then segued into his time on an aircraft carrier as a member of the US Air Force during WWII. He remembered for me the wrenching sound of the misaligned screw propeller on the repurposed freighter that had been turned into a carrier. He said, “That sound about drove us crazy, but those Navy guys didn’t pay it any mind.” After a few minutes reflection on that he said, “Why don’t you sing to me?” That surprised me a little. He doesn’t always remember that I’m “the singing lady”, so I took that to mean he was ready to stop remembering certain things. Or maybe that he just wanted to remember them in a more comforting way. Either way, he held onto his shell as we sang some of his favorite songs together.
Mary, who doesn’t really speak, simply rubbed and stroked the shell I put in her hand as she looked into my eyes and smiled while I sang beach songs. Alice can’t really see anymore, but was so pleased that I had brought her a gift! She squeezed my hand and thanked me as profusely as if I’d given her a diamond tiara. Phyllis, who mostly just nods, looked at her shell closely, turning it over and over in her hand, smiled, and then gestured for me to place it on the windowsill with her other “treasures”.
And finally there was Oliver, who turned 100 years old last September, and whom I’ve been singing with – and writing about – for several years. I told him from the start that I wasn’t sure if he’d like the seashell I’d brought him, since I know he is “a lake man”. He frequently talks about the house he built on Lake Travis. He clearly loves it more than anyplace on earth. (When I asked him once where he’d be if he could be anywhere in the world, he talked about the lake house and said, “There couldn’t be anyplace better.”) He can’t understand why anyone would want to be in saltwater when you can be in lake water, and he laughed when I told him we were having our first fight – lake vs. beach. But he held the shell up to his ear to see if he could hear the ocean. After listening for a moment, he said, “I can’t hear the ocean. But what I hear is, ‘I love you. I love you.’”
Oliver’s going deaf, but there’s nothing wrong with his hearing. Because I didn’t realize it until he said it, but that’s what every one of those seashells is saying.
As I mentioned in my last post, I recently lost two of my favorite Musical Memories clients last week. They were both fun and lovely women who allowed me into their lives during what turned out to be their final days on earth, for which I’ll be forever grateful.
If you haven’t already, please read Call Me Eve! to learn about dear Evelyn. But now let me tell you about June. I’ll warn you, though. This one gets a little spooky!
June was a bright and brilliant person with a genuinely charismatic personality. I’m sure that came in handy because, as she told me, she and her husband had been very involved in local, state and national politics. Since it’s important to me to protect the privacy of my clients and their families, I won’t be specific, but I was impressed to learn that her husband had been elected to a high state office and was later subject to a presidential appointment on the national level. And June herself worked in state government in various capacities.
She was also a proud Baylor University graduate, who taught me the Baylor Alma Mater – That Good Old Baylor Line – which is sung to the tune of In the Good Old Summertime, and which we sang at the end of every visit, complete with the “Sic ‘em, Bears!” sign at the end.
Like Eve, June’s favorite songs were traditional hymns. She loved Amazing Grace, Into the Garden and Blessed Assurance, which I sang for her frequently. But one song I didn’t know – and she requested several times – was The Old Rugged Cross. So I was excited the day I had finally learned it and planned to sing it for her. But alas, she was in the hospital that day. For the next few weeks, I looked forward to surprising her with it when she got out. I was heartbroken when I got the call that she had passed away unexpectedly. She would never hear me sing her favorite hymn.
This is where it gets spooky. A couple of days later I was singing to Alice who lived a few rooms down from June. Alice also loves hymns and was happy to sing along with me to The Old Rugged Cross. I try to be very present with my elder friends, but at that moment I have to admit that I couldn’t stop thinking about June.
So imagine how I felt when, as we finished singing the song, Alice stared past me into the empty room and said, “There’s someone behind you.”
Now, Alice tends to have what some people would call “hallucinations”. She “sees” her departed family members often. In fact, I wrote about her family “visits” last year in A Family Reunion. But I wanted to be sure she wasn’t feeling frightened, so I checked with her and she assured me that the person behind me seemed nice. And then she was gone.
As I’ve said before, I don’t know how any of this life, death, and after-life stuff works, so I won’t swear that June was there, listening to The Old Rugged Cross. All I do know is that I will never sing or hear that song without thinking of her, and that makes me happy.
Here’s an update on my singing with elders and dementia patients: For those who care about my ability to make a (modest) living doing what I love, I’m happy to report that I’m now working three days a week, so have achieved a level of “predictable income” which would make my dear departed mentor Haven very relieved. I’m also doing what I love which makes me – and my spiritual director Jean – very happy as well.
But on a more emotional level, this has been a tough week. I just lost two very dear friends. (An unexpected side-effect of this “job” is that people I grow close to die at a frequent, albeit somewhat predictable, rate.) And within a week’s time, Eve and June passed away, so I offer my reflections.
Eve was a fun, funny, warm, and welcoming woman who suffered from dementia apparently brought on by Parkinson’s disease. (I don’t know too much about her back story which I usually learn from obituaries, because her family chose something extremely brief.) So all I know is from our interactions starting about three months ago when she welcomed me into her room as a total stranger who had come to sing.
We bonded quickly, in part because we like the same songs: 30’s & 40’s pop, as well as a variety of hymns. Eve knew the words to virtually any song I suggested, but the hymns were her favorites which seems to be true for many of my elder friends.
But she was also quick with a joke or funny story. When I asked her permission to address her by her first name of Evelyn, she said, “Call me Evelyn, call me Eve, just don’t call me late for supper!” When I asked where she was born, she promptly replied, “In a taxicab,” and proceeded to tell me the story of her mother’s harrowing cab ride through the streets of Chicago where Eve was unexpectedly born. She also took some delight in relating her encounter with a doctor at some point in her life who – like me – asked her where she’d been born. When she replied with her taxicab answer, she was tickled when the doctor replied, “No kidding? So was I!” I mean, really, what are the odds?
In late February, a few weeks before she died, I stopped in to see Eve as usual and she was unusually delighted. She said, “Today is Easter!” I’ve learned with dementia patients that it’s best to enter their reality, so we spent our time together talking about Easter – how we celebrate, what food we cook and eat, and of course, what songs we sing. And together we sang our favorite Easter hymns. The next few weeks, every time we got together, she would mention, “I saw you on Easter,” to which I would always agree.
Eve was one of those people I sing with for whom death did not seem imminent – at least to me – so when I got the notification that she had died rather suddenly, I was very surprised and saddened. But of course, I was happy for her that she had been released from her limited physical state and had gone on to whatever is next.
And I can assure you that on Easter Sunday 2016, I will be singing to and with my dear departed friend Eve…or Evelyn…but I will not call her late for Easter supper!
I’ll tell you about my other dear departed friend in my next post. But **spoiler alert** if you happen to hear someone singing The Old Rugged Cross, it’s probably June.
I work too hard. I know that may be difficult for some people to believe. After all, I don’t have a “real job”. I have always leaned toward comfort and ease, as opposed to seeking out challenges and pushing the envelope. I frequently describe myself as “lazy” – sometimes in a disparaging way, but often as a point of honor, trying to demonstrate a level of self-acceptance despite this obvious character flaw.
But recently I was cautioning a friend who has been doing some extremely hard and heavy emotional lifting to be sure to add some fun, play and downtime in her otherwise stressful days. I actually told her that I saw it as a “red flag” in her mental health. Then it occurred to me – not for the first time – that often we see in others the traits or patterns we most need to address in ourselves.
And it hit me that for years, the people who know me best have been saying things like, “You sure do work hard.” or “Slow down. Take a break. Relax.” or “You work harder than anyone I know.” But I’ve never believed it. I think one reason is that while a lot of my hard work has been related to employment activities, it certainly hasn’t done much to generate financial security, and isn’t that how hard work is measured? (Actually, it probably has more to do with the fact that “business” is not my forte, but I digress.)
A great deal of my hard work has been physical and in the areas of home repair, maintenance and landscaping. And I work very hard at relationships, personal development, and spiritual growth. But whatever the arena, it seems my work pattern involves putting complete focus on the work at hand, with plans to relax or play “soon” or “later” or when the work is “finished”. (With physical work, I’ve actually driven myself to literal collapse because I wouldn’t stop even to take a quick break or get a drink of water.)
So I should just learn to chill out, right? It’s not so easy. The other day, for example, I had nothing on my calendar. Of course, like everyone, I have a list of things I “should” do – mop the floors, clean out the refrigerator, organize files, not to mention overdue yardwork, bookkeeping, and the ever-present “do something to increase my income”. The list is unending. But this morning my Angel Card said “Play”.
Now, if you’re not familiar with Angel Cards, they come in a little deck of 20 or 30, each containing the drawing of an angel and a word, like Play, Grace, Understanding, Love, Compassion. They were originally part of a New Age game called Transformation, but I use them as a reminder of important concepts. I pick one at random each morning to discover my gift or aspiration for the day.
Typically, I get a different card each day, but that particular week, no matter how much I shuffled the deck, I kept getting Play every morning. So, finally paying attention to what the Universe was telling me, I decided to at least think about going to the movies instead of working on my To Do List. But it was incredibly hard even to consider it! Not when I had so much work I should be doing. It felt wrong, bad, irresponsible.
Then I thought, For God’s sake! I’m 62 years old, it’s going to be a brutally hot day, many people would love to have the option of not working today, and here I am, with no boss, no looming deadlines, and no real commitments for the day, and I’m struggling with the idea of giving myself a couple of hours off in an air conditioned movie theater! How crazy is that?
Now, this is the point where I wish I could tell you that I saw the light and sat in the dark, watching an amazing and entertaining film that made me laugh and energized or uplifted me in some way. But sadly, no. I couldn’t make myself do it. I stayed home doing paperwork and paying bills (which could have waited), doing laundry (which wasn’t going anywhere) and stressing over how to generate more income (which didn’t help anything).
I’m not giving up, though. I’ll keep trying to stop trying so hard. But I thought it was time to finally say it: My name is Pat, and I’m a workaholic.
Let me start by saying that I know that some people are going to read this and feel sad, depressed and/or scared. To those people I’ll just say, I’m sorry you don’t see this the way I do.
Today I met with one of my favorite dementia patients. Alice is a lovely, warm and rather lonely woman who is always happy to have me visit and sing with her. She’s one of my “clients” (though they quickly become so much more than the word implies) who always meets me for the first time. She’s very open to having me sing, but demurely professes not to be able to sing herself. However, in less than one phrase or measure of whatever song I choose, Alice is belting it out with joy and enthusiasm, rarely forgetting a single word. And if asked, she’ll reluctantly admit that she had a lead role in her church choir, and frequently sang with her large family.
Alice loves to talk about her family. She has eight brothers and one sister, and her parents met at the University of Texas or Texas State, depending on the day. Her father is a farmer and something of a math whiz who helps neighbors with their bookkeeping and financial matters because his generous nature is commensurate with his business acumen. He is a quiet, somewhat solitary man, and he has a very warm and loving relationship with Alice’s mother, who plays the piano and has beautiful blue eyes.
Alice talks about them often. But more than anything, she talks about her eight brothers, whom she adores. She was born on the birthday of one of them – Roy – who has a beautiful voice and always calls her his “birthday present”. I put all that in the present tense, because that’s how Alice describes her family, even though I suspect all or most of them passed away years ago. But to her, they are permanently present in her life.
And today she couldn’t wait to tell me that “My brother is here today!” I asked if it was Roy (who I can tell is her favorite) but no, it was Clifford, who according to Alice is 18 years old. Clifford is “so dang smart”, as are all the members of her family, she says. He just finished high school and loves to work on cars. He’s very mechanical, like her father. I remarked on how wonderful it was to get a visit from her brother, and asked her if she’d had a chance to see anyone else. She excitedly told me that she had gone to Lemesa last Sunday to visit two of her brothers who live there. (Keep in mind, Alice is more or less bedridden, and probably hasn’t left her nursing facility in years.) She let me know that her brother Dan and his wife Irene had gone to Lubbock because one of their children was in the hospital, but the baby seems to be doing well, so that’s good. She said that Roy will be here this weekend and her sister Elizabeth – who teaches at “the university up there” and has lost a lot of weight recently; her hair always looks good – will be here soon. She warned me that her brother Buddy may try to flirt with me if I come to the house for breakfast, but not to worry because he doesn’t flirt too much. She wishes that her brothers would tell her more about what’s going on in their lives, but they’re quiet, like her father, and she sometimes has to drag things out of them. She said that it’s hard for her to know what’s going at home these days, since she’s away at school. But she enthusiastically shared all the family news: Her mother went and got her picture made, but no one knows why; Glenn has a girlfriend now; Maurice is busy as always; and lots more.
As I said, I know some people will find it sad that an 80-90 year old woman doesn’t have her exact geographic and temporal coordinates straight. But, today Alice was filled with joy and she had a great day with her family! And I was lucky enough to be there for the family reunion.