January 31, 2011

My dad asked, “How did you find me?”

I replied, “I knew where you were dad, so I just headed in that direction.”

He marveled, like the concept was laden with mystery. His eyes wondered to someplace far away and back to mine and he smiled and said, “Jeepers.”

We took a long walk through the building. Many residents doors were open. Myriad elderly residents were posed in their rooms in wheelchairs before large screen tvs watching black and white movies with Carry Grant or Jimmy Stewart. There was one exception. A woman who may have been 90 was sitting completely motionless in a wheel chair watching an exercise channel. The woman on the screen was 20 something, vivacious, full of enthusiasm and vigor. She was jumping up and down coaching the woman in the wheelchair. "Ok, two more, and one and that's it! Now let's....”

As we passed by the room my Dad held up his hand. He could’t say what he was thinking. I said, “Are  your hands still strong dad?”

He said,“Oh yes!”

At the end of each hallway I would bring my dad to the window. At one window I said, “There is my truck, down there, the green one.”

The sun was shining bright outside. The large building cast hard shadows on the massive piles of plowed up snow. I felt sad that this wasn't my father's world, beyond the glass. The world that he had ventured out into for 80 years.

At another window there wasn't much to comment on. We both looked out, expecting more.

We eventually returned to the doors from which we had came with the keypad lock. A nurse or attendant held the door open for us and greeted my dad back. As she held the door open for him he stopped as if there would be a conversation. He re enforced his stance. She said, “Haven, sweetheart, you better follow that young man.”

He said “Oh.”

He followed me back to a large room where I had first found him. We sat on a window seat. Side by side. The slanting shadows, through the windows were behind me.

I told him I loved him and that I was going to leave. As I expected he interpreted this to mean he was coming with me. I hugged him and wished some how I could avoid the pain of tricking him to stay. He followed me to the door, I typed 1998 into the keypad and we watched the green light appear. As I opened the door I told him he had to stay on the inside and I was leaving. He further pushed the door open enough for his passage. Now we were both in the foyer, beyond the keypad.

“Dad, follow me.” I suggested. Returning back inside he followed me over to the nurses station. The nurse asked how she could help us.

I said, “Haven Freeman is as determined to leave as I am.”

She said,“Haven, why don't you come with me?”

As she walked him out into a large sun room in the opposite direction of the keypad door I heard her say, “Yes, your son will be here when we come back.”

As I typed 1998 into the keypad, opened the door and walked out into the sharp bright sunlight the pain followed me just like my shadow.

Would you want to know?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/health/18moral.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

The above New York Times article discusses new techniques to discover if you are likely and possibly certain to develop Alzheimer's. It is controversial with most physicians because once they make a diagnosis there is no hope for a cure. Regardless, many people want to know.

Cutting Firewood, Alone

Above three photos taken by my daughter, Amber

I know I have written about cutting firewood in the past and it's because this activity connects me to my father like none other.

When I was a teen hitchhiking to college I was picked up by a gentleman who enlightened me about the transcendentalists. He especially suggested I read Thoreau. Walden made a huge impact on my life. His name was Bob Chase. He gave me a papermate pen with his name on it which I used for many years to scribe a journal. Finally his name wore completely off the barrel and the pen was tossed into a drawer someplace.

After reading Thoreau's account of his experience at Walden Pond my admiration for nature was reinforced. There was something so practical about living in a tiny hut, washing your floors with a bucket of cold pond water and opening the doors and letting the fresh air cleanse things.

As a teen I spent many many hours in the woods. At first playing army with neighborhood kids and then hunting with my Dad or best buddies. So many afternoons I couldn't wait to jump off the school bus, run into the house, grab a gun and then into the woods in search of partridge, pheasant, rabbit or deer. Hunting held a fascination for me as did the woods. At the time I knew nothing more exciting than to explore an abandoned tote road or game path.

Behind my house were many square miles of large tracts of land. I could walk for miles and never have to cross the same stream in the same place. I did become familiar with the land but never sure where I might see a rabbit or deer or fox.

At the same time my parents installed a wood stove in our cellar. It must have been during the energy crises in the 1970's. My dad had also acquired a woodlot about 3 miles from our home. He had cut an old dump truck down to its chasis and engine. Built a box beneath the steering wheel to sit on and we had a woods rig. It was two wheel drive and very prone to becoming stuck. None the less we drove it up to the woodlot and loaded up a trailer with beech and birch and hauled it home and stacked 4 or 5 cords in the cellar for the winter.

I wasn't always enthusiastic about these excursions. I would have rather watched cartoons or done nothing most of the time. But once we got out there it was fun. My Dad taught me how to use the chainsaw and how not to use the chainsaw. My first vivid experience was when the saw caught on my pant leg just below my knee. The lower part of my jeans fell to the ground. I thought I must have cut into my leg or even cut my leg off as well. I remember waiting for the pain and not wanting to look as I anticipated the worst. I don't think my Dad saw what had happened as he tossed a log in front of me an commanded me to, "cut this one." With still no pain I looked at my leg and to my astonishment there was no cut at all. I went on cutting like nothing had happened.

Armed with chainsaws and a chopped up dump truck spewing carbon monoxide wildly into the envioronment with tire chains isn't exactly as romantic as Thoreau's wood cutter who could cut four chords of wood with an axe and during breaks chickadees would, without incident, land on his head. All the same, cutting wood is such a simple task that it somehow becomes elegant.

My Dad and I mostly have in common our DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Other than that and the fact he was my Father we didn't have a lot in common. He loved God, old tools, antiques, his dog, his children and cutting firewood. I have always been terribly curious about God, less so about tools and antiques and have an understanding about cutting firewood. When we got together there was never a dull moment but I could never talk to him about art, music, science, current events or such because of these subjects he was incognizant. And although I could tell him about Thoreau or Emerson, Bach, Faynman, Hubble, Rembrant, Picasso, Dylan Thomas, scripting languages, etc., etc., he found my interests to have no relevance to his own existence.

I was always slightly sad that neither of my parents could appreciate the art that I used to create. But as I have become older I understand that it is not important. People who want to appreciate art will do so, others who may be indifferent understand other things, maybe as a compensation. With my Father, cutting firewood was an artform, which I am grateful to understand.

Without exaggeration cutting firewood came from his soul. It was a straightforward expression of his passion and existence. He passed some of this onto me. I am distracted from pursuing art presently but if I chose an artform, cutting firewood would be high on my list. As I sit here trying to convey this concept I understand how esoteric my thoughts are. Today, as the chainsaw rattled violently in my oily gloves and sawdust sprayed above and below me I felt a connection with my Dad.

I knew if he were here cutting wood with me and not at Sentry Hill he would anticipate my every move and me his. When we cut wood together it was like a synchronized collaboration. In art what you really have in the end is a finished product which may or may not be a representation of the process. In cutting firewood what you have in addition to flat tires, broken blades, burned out spark plugs, ringing ears, plugged carburators, a sore back, ticks and nostrils full of exhaust is a pile, a pile of satisfaction.

November 30, 2010

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-heart-brain-connection

As a subscriber to Scientific American I recently read the above article from the magazine. This morning I noticed it was posted on the SciAm facebook page so I can easily share it with you.

The article is not completely full of bad news. I was especially interested in the Australian study which found that people who did 20 minutes of exercise a day had 2x enhanced cognitive test result compared with those on the drug Aricept (Donepezil).

My Dad took Aricept and Namenda. Although these drugs facilitate enhanced memory they evidently do nothing to prevent dementia or Alzheimer's Disease. My father has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. In the past year his motor skills have diminished, he less frequently walks on his own (indoor) and I have found him mostly sleeping in a chair in the dining room at Sentry Hill when I visit. He is locked into the Alzheimer's ward by a keypad. If you can't punch in the correct four digits you cannot exit.

Upon arrival for a visit I can wake him by calling his name or tapping his arm. Sometimes he dozes off and sometimes he remains attentive throughout a visit such as yesterday. My sister and I both visited him together. I was greeted by a broad grin which assured me he knew who I was immediately. My sister brought 3 boxes of donuts and provided coffee. She shared them first with my father and then the other residents whom seemed interested. He seemed very happy to be amongst his children.

We were told that the memory enhancing drugs (Aricept and Namenda) would run their course and he would have to stop taking them, which he did. There is no hope in site for a cure for Alzheimer's Disease. But the linked article does provide some hope that a healthy heart is a benefit for the brain.

November 10, 2010

Last night was the last awards night I will attend for the York High School Cross Country Team as a dad. It was a very touching evening. My youngest son Silas followed his brother by running 4 years on the team. After receiving the most valuable runner award he was called the heart of the team by his coaches.

The team has been a huge benefit for my entire family. The coaches have inspired my kids to run and hence it has rubbed of on especially Sandra and I. She has just completed her first full Marathon and second half Marathon. And she attributes it to the influence running has had on her two boys. If you told me 10 years ago we would develop and interest and love for running I couldn't have stretched my imagination that far.