Lessons are learned from the people who populate our lives. As children we learn from the adults who influence us. As adults we learn from the children we have influenced through their lives. We learn about who we are—or not—from the people with whom we have relationships.
My mother always made remarks that stopped me in my tracks…thought-provoking remarks. Some took me by surprise because I never would have seen them coming. Some were spoken soft and low, the two of us alone in my car, as if she were afraid God would hear and condemn her to Hell.
Mom was somewhere in the middle of her Alzheimer’s journey. She drove her car to my house to pick me up, probably to go shopping. And she said to me, “You can drive if you want to. You probably don’t trust me to drive.” She found her way to my house. I wasn’t afraid to ride with her. And I told her so. But the day did come when we had to take her car keys from her. She was SO angry about that.
“I’ve been driving since I was 16 years old,” she argued. “Much longer than you…You’ll know how it feels when your children do this to you.” I recognized the Alzheimer’s doing the talking.
I still can’t understand why Dad took her to renew her driver’s license the last time. Unless he thought the BMV wouldn’t renew her license. But they did. So we had to take on the responsibilities of protecting Mom and everyone around her who might be hurt if she drove her car.
I never felt like we did role reversal. I was never her mother. I was her daughter. I knew her, how she did things, what she expected, so I let her make decisions but used my own common sense to assure they were viable decisions with good consequences. She was satisfied that she had some control over her life.
I think about my abilities, when I will have to relinquish my driving privileges. (Driving is not a right. It is a privilege. And when we can no longer drive safely we must give up our keys, our cars, and rely on younger drivers who are safer drivers to get us where we need to go.) I’d like to own one more new vehicle and travel a lot before I have to give up those privileges. I may even have time enough to own two new cars.
A young woman, grown tired of neglect and emotional cruelty from her husband resolved to leave, “I am almost 40 years old. I only have one life. I’m not going to waste any more of it!”
An older woman asks, “How do you break promises to God?” And is told the promises were made to a man, not to God. And, anyway, it’s hard to comprehend the hold of patriarchy over a woman who has been neglected and unhappy for years but cannot bring herself to leave the unhealthy relationship even though she has been informed that God doesn’t want his children to live in a state of unhappiness. And the husband has broken his vows so their contract is null and void. But, but, but, she could be happy if her husband would be the man he needs to be…that she needs him to be. She can’t change him. And he’s not going to change. What is she going to do?
On Sunday I clicked a link to a story with this headline: “Thoughts of God make us slackers, study suggests.” (http://www.livescience.com/16784-thoughts-god-motivation-temptation.html). Why? “People ‘behave’ because God knows when they’ve been bad or good. Being reminded of the presence of an all-knowing God helps people resist temptations for fear they will be ‘caught’ by God and punished…”
THAT is patriarchy.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Making ends meet
There are just some things you need to say, but you keep them bottled up inside. You don’t want to upset anyone. You want to keep your ship steady as she goes because the world around us is filled with so much chaos and you think if you can just adjust this, tweak that, you might be able to fix your little parcel of the world and all will be well.
But at this moment chaos reigns and there doesn’t seem to be a way to mend fences, reconcile differences, heal broken hearts, and get feet on solid ground. Winter is uncomfortably close, expected to be long and cold. When the buzzards depart Nov. 1 to winter in the south, maybe I wish I was flying away with them. Things that should have been taken care of weren’t. No garden, no harvest. I really wanted a garden. I wanted to put up tomatoes, freeze peppers, make jams and jellies beginning in June with strawberries and working my way through the fruit seasons. Someone has to clean out the rain gutters on the house where trees have begun to grow. Someone has to caulk the windows to keep out the cold of winter. Someone needs to patch the garage roof, find the reason why the security light kicks out the breaker every morning when the light clicks off, cut the dead branches out of the oak tree and that’s just the outside work.
I was searching online for information about senior resources and ended up researching a news headline: “Report: Drug dealers buying prescription painkillers from Ohio senior citizens.” It sounds like there are folks who have it worse off than the rest of us. Seriously? Selling their potent prescription painkillers to street dealers??? The Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network reported, “Drug dealers around Ohio are developing new sources for prescription painkillers by buying them from senior citizens, sometimes as the patients leave pharmacies.” The said report “shows Ohio’s prescription painkiller epidemic is continuing and in some cases, may be getting worse. (http://blog.cleveland.com/health_impact/). The release is dated Oct. 4, 2011. “The network cites reports from Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown of drug dealers buying painkillers from seniors WHO OFTEN NEED THE MONEY TO MAKE ENDS MEET.” (Emphasis mine.) And that reportedly is the Youngstown area.
The drug dealers convince the seniors to go to the doctor, fake pain, get prescriptions for Oxycontin, etc., then take them to the pharmacy to get the medications, and then pay them for the drugs. I can’t…comprehend…This is the literal “last resort” to providing for an individual’s needs??? Why does this smack of irresponsibility? Drug dealing is illegal! Conscience—doesn’t anyone know anything about conscience and honor and doing the right thing? What if their own grandchildren were on the receiving end of those medications…and something terrible happened? Of course, they would never know. Not seeing the faces of the people who will use those drugs makes it alright?
Yet another news story caught my eye over the weekend. More Americans than Chinese are going hungry. Makes me ask if Washington DC really thinks we believe the Great Recession is subsiding. Really? As hard as some have worked to “dumb down America” maybe we’re smarter than “they” think. So, how are we all going to survive the winter?
I started out this blog entry complaining about the windows that weren’t caulked, the garden we didn’t grow, the tree branches, long dead, that fall to the ground when a gusty wind hits them just right.
But at this moment chaos reigns and there doesn’t seem to be a way to mend fences, reconcile differences, heal broken hearts, and get feet on solid ground. Winter is uncomfortably close, expected to be long and cold. When the buzzards depart Nov. 1 to winter in the south, maybe I wish I was flying away with them. Things that should have been taken care of weren’t. No garden, no harvest. I really wanted a garden. I wanted to put up tomatoes, freeze peppers, make jams and jellies beginning in June with strawberries and working my way through the fruit seasons. Someone has to clean out the rain gutters on the house where trees have begun to grow. Someone has to caulk the windows to keep out the cold of winter. Someone needs to patch the garage roof, find the reason why the security light kicks out the breaker every morning when the light clicks off, cut the dead branches out of the oak tree and that’s just the outside work.
I was searching online for information about senior resources and ended up researching a news headline: “Report: Drug dealers buying prescription painkillers from Ohio senior citizens.” It sounds like there are folks who have it worse off than the rest of us. Seriously? Selling their potent prescription painkillers to street dealers??? The Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network reported, “Drug dealers around Ohio are developing new sources for prescription painkillers by buying them from senior citizens, sometimes as the patients leave pharmacies.” The said report “shows Ohio’s prescription painkiller epidemic is continuing and in some cases, may be getting worse. (http://blog.cleveland.com/health_impact/). The release is dated Oct. 4, 2011. “The network cites reports from Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown of drug dealers buying painkillers from seniors WHO OFTEN NEED THE MONEY TO MAKE ENDS MEET.” (Emphasis mine.) And that reportedly is the Youngstown area.
The drug dealers convince the seniors to go to the doctor, fake pain, get prescriptions for Oxycontin, etc., then take them to the pharmacy to get the medications, and then pay them for the drugs. I can’t…comprehend…This is the literal “last resort” to providing for an individual’s needs??? Why does this smack of irresponsibility? Drug dealing is illegal! Conscience—doesn’t anyone know anything about conscience and honor and doing the right thing? What if their own grandchildren were on the receiving end of those medications…and something terrible happened? Of course, they would never know. Not seeing the faces of the people who will use those drugs makes it alright?
Yet another news story caught my eye over the weekend. More Americans than Chinese are going hungry. Makes me ask if Washington DC really thinks we believe the Great Recession is subsiding. Really? As hard as some have worked to “dumb down America” maybe we’re smarter than “they” think. So, how are we all going to survive the winter?
I started out this blog entry complaining about the windows that weren’t caulked, the garden we didn’t grow, the tree branches, long dead, that fall to the ground when a gusty wind hits them just right.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Respect is Earned
Mom insisted we should have an honor code. We would respect our dad because without him we would not have been born. We would be courteous, considerate of others and we would keep our troubles to ourselves because everybody has problems and they don't want to know about ours. If we look around, we can always find someone worse off than we are. Mom insisted we should live by the Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Respect. That's what I've always wanted, to be respected. But it isn't something that is due us, a right. It is something we must earn. We earn respect through everything we say and do. That's a great lesson for young people, but how does it apply in the outside world?
The 1960s was a great time to grow up: the love generation. Or maybe as 1969 rolled around everything at our house was measuring up to the American Dream. Mom had always told me I could do anything I wanted, achieve anything I wanted to do if I was willing to work hard. It wasn't about biology, gender. It was about ability. And she believed I was loaded with ability, qualities I didn't consider special. Wasn't everyone like me? Wasn't I just human like everyone else? I really didn't think there was anything special about me. Besides, boys didn't like girls who were smart.
No, Mom said. I couldn't expect everyone to perform at the same level as me because everyone doesn't have the same abilities I do. I needed to be patient with those who aren't as capable as me. Some people misread me. They thought I was arrogant. (If they only knew!) But actually, don't my children deserve to have good things, too? What is different about their desires for their children and my desires for my children? That makes me arrogant? Oh, well. I digress.
l
The late 1970s were...hm...well, I remember when the steel mills in the industrial heartland locked their doors. I felt terrible for the families who lost everything they had worked for all of their lives. I thanked God it wasn't us. Oh, but I--and many around me--was about to learn some valuable lessons in economics, things like "trickle-down" and "ripple effect." When the mills closed, all of the industry that relied on domestic steel was hit. Domestic steel couldn't match the affordability of the Japanese imports. (Thanks, Uncle Sam in Washington, for giving away the store.) By 1991, my husband's job was on its way to Romania in Eastern Europe. (And you thought the loss of jobs to overseas markets was something new in the new century.)
With no paycheck we couldn't spend. The stores, businesses and professions, with no customers, began to fade away. Population dropped from 112,075 in 2000 to 107,841 in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau as of June 3, 2011. Some other data from the county's census report include: 84.5 percent of 25-year-olds and older are high school grads, 11.8 percent hold bachelor degrees. The per capita income (2009 dollars) is $19,785; median household income, $38,004. Persons below poverty level, 16.4 percent in the county (17,686) at a time when the state poverty level is at 15.1 percent. Women-owned firms in Columbiana County are 28.1 percent and 27.7 percent in the state. Of the $90,592,062 federal dollars sent to Ohio, only $755,832 of it came to our county (2008). The land area of Columbiana County is 532.46 miles. Population is 202.5 persons per square miles (2010).
Admissions at the Kent State branches in Salem and East Liverpool go up when jobs go down. But when they complete their education, do the students stay or do they leave to follow the jobs? It looks like they leave. And what does that do to the fabric of the extended family?
What does all of this have to do with respect? There are different forms of respect, the most important being self-respect because if you don't feel good about yourself, how can you see good in others or in the world around you? When the jobs went away, people were robbed of their self-respect when they could no longer take care of their families and their obligations. When they were told they did not qualify for foodstamps so they should buy food and not pay their bills--AND THEY WERE--how do you suppose they felt? What did they think? Feel? How did they respond?
Yes, this blog entry is all about respect when you read between the lines and walk in the other man's skin for a while.
Funny that I found this article just hours after writing this blog entry. Maybe you will want to check this out: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/more-americans-chinese-t-put-food-table-132752601.html
Next time: To Kill a Mockingbird...What is Courage?
(c) 2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield--ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Why am I so sure that someone somewhere on the planet will think the copyrights that belong to me don't apply to them? If you are interested in using my words, please contact me for permission.
Respect. That's what I've always wanted, to be respected. But it isn't something that is due us, a right. It is something we must earn. We earn respect through everything we say and do. That's a great lesson for young people, but how does it apply in the outside world?
The 1960s was a great time to grow up: the love generation. Or maybe as 1969 rolled around everything at our house was measuring up to the American Dream. Mom had always told me I could do anything I wanted, achieve anything I wanted to do if I was willing to work hard. It wasn't about biology, gender. It was about ability. And she believed I was loaded with ability, qualities I didn't consider special. Wasn't everyone like me? Wasn't I just human like everyone else? I really didn't think there was anything special about me. Besides, boys didn't like girls who were smart.
No, Mom said. I couldn't expect everyone to perform at the same level as me because everyone doesn't have the same abilities I do. I needed to be patient with those who aren't as capable as me. Some people misread me. They thought I was arrogant. (If they only knew!) But actually, don't my children deserve to have good things, too? What is different about their desires for their children and my desires for my children? That makes me arrogant? Oh, well. I digress.
l
The late 1970s were...hm...well, I remember when the steel mills in the industrial heartland locked their doors. I felt terrible for the families who lost everything they had worked for all of their lives. I thanked God it wasn't us. Oh, but I--and many around me--was about to learn some valuable lessons in economics, things like "trickle-down" and "ripple effect." When the mills closed, all of the industry that relied on domestic steel was hit. Domestic steel couldn't match the affordability of the Japanese imports. (Thanks, Uncle Sam in Washington, for giving away the store.) By 1991, my husband's job was on its way to Romania in Eastern Europe. (And you thought the loss of jobs to overseas markets was something new in the new century.)
With no paycheck we couldn't spend. The stores, businesses and professions, with no customers, began to fade away. Population dropped from 112,075 in 2000 to 107,841 in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau as of June 3, 2011. Some other data from the county's census report include: 84.5 percent of 25-year-olds and older are high school grads, 11.8 percent hold bachelor degrees. The per capita income (2009 dollars) is $19,785; median household income, $38,004. Persons below poverty level, 16.4 percent in the county (17,686) at a time when the state poverty level is at 15.1 percent. Women-owned firms in Columbiana County are 28.1 percent and 27.7 percent in the state. Of the $90,592,062 federal dollars sent to Ohio, only $755,832 of it came to our county (2008). The land area of Columbiana County is 532.46 miles. Population is 202.5 persons per square miles (2010).
Admissions at the Kent State branches in Salem and East Liverpool go up when jobs go down. But when they complete their education, do the students stay or do they leave to follow the jobs? It looks like they leave. And what does that do to the fabric of the extended family?
What does all of this have to do with respect? There are different forms of respect, the most important being self-respect because if you don't feel good about yourself, how can you see good in others or in the world around you? When the jobs went away, people were robbed of their self-respect when they could no longer take care of their families and their obligations. When they were told they did not qualify for foodstamps so they should buy food and not pay their bills--AND THEY WERE--how do you suppose they felt? What did they think? Feel? How did they respond?
Yes, this blog entry is all about respect when you read between the lines and walk in the other man's skin for a while.
Funny that I found this article just hours after writing this blog entry. Maybe you will want to check this out: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/more-americans-chinese-t-put-food-table-132752601.html
Next time: To Kill a Mockingbird...What is Courage?
(c) 2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield--ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Why am I so sure that someone somewhere on the planet will think the copyrights that belong to me don't apply to them? If you are interested in using my words, please contact me for permission.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Recovery Begins
I recall some things my mother said, things that are very important to remember. These things are so important that I am recording them...In a novel. I see it as potential Pulitzer stuff. And when I have a complete body of work, the Nobel in Literature. I know. Some people will think that's pretty lofty goals, but I was told that God likes it when we dream big because he likes to achieve big. And since he provided me with a big brother named Jesus, and since those places in the sand where there was only one set of footprints was/is when he carries me, I guess it's OK to dream big.
My mother had Alzheimer's for, well, she was diagnosed in March 2001. Quite a year toward the end of 2001, wasn't it? Well, Mom shared a lot of things with me. As her memory became more impaired she might say, "I can't remember anything." I would answer, "That's OK, Mom. I will remember for both of us." She would smile and say, "OK." One day she said to me, "I am afraid to talk." We were in her room at the nursing facility. (I will never call them homes again.) "Why?" I asked. "I think I'm not making sense. Sometimes I can't think of the right thing to say, the right word. I am afraid I look foolish." "Don't you give that a thought, Mom," I comforted her. "We all love you. We understand. It's OK. I don't want you to ever stop talking to me. Do you hear me?" "Yes." Relief washed over her.
I remember when she said to me with tears in her eyes, "I think we are too close." It was just a few years into the Alzheimer's journey. "What do you mean?" I asked. "Well, when something happens to me you are going to hurt really bad." "Why don't you let me worry about that?" I suggested. "Mom, I want all the memories you can give me. They will get me through the times when I don't have you any longer." "Are you sure?" she asked. "Yes."
The lives of women have changed so much over the centuries...since the beginning of time! Women have been demonized, been designated second class citizens, not intelligent enough or too emotionally fragile to sit on a jury or vote in an election. Often they have been nameless. Never in history or social studies classes did I ever hear the story about Deborah Franklin, wife of statesman Benjamin Franklin. Never in literature classes did we read On the Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft, published 1792. I don't recall a time when we read poetry by Anne Bradstreet or Phyllis Wheatley. The stories of women were not worthy of being recorded.
Early in the summer 2011 I had lunch with my friend and former English professor. I talked...no, I complained about my situation and asked, "How do you break promises to God?" I thought Patti was angry with me. Later I apologized for making her angry. She replied, "I wasn't angry with you. I am upset about the deep hold of patriarchy over you."
Well, that was quite a statement!
One of my sisters-in-law recently asked me, "Are you sure you aren't Catholic?" I have a strong command of Guilt, but no, I'm not Catholic.
Patriarchy may have very good purposes. But it also has done a lot of damage, preventing many women achieving their dreams and goals because of gender: they are "female." Surely everyone understands that intelligence is NOT biological! Why do some men have so much difficulty understanding that intelligent wives are wonderful assets to the family. Why are they so intimidated by intelligent women? And where on earth would a 40-year-old man get the idea in his head that it was OK to correct a 58-year-old woman?
I am not a feminist. But maybe I bend toward egalitarianism. It takes both partners in a relationship to make a relationship work. When times are hard, those two partners have to work together if they stand any chance at all of getting through the hard times and come out on the other, sunny, side together. Not so unlike those early hunter-gatherers who traveled in small bands, following the food, and everyone working together just to insure the survival of human beings. Respect doesn't discern gender. Respect is something everyone deserves if they are willing to work to earn it.
Maybe next time I will talk about Respect.
(c) 2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All Rights Reserved.
My mother had Alzheimer's for, well, she was diagnosed in March 2001. Quite a year toward the end of 2001, wasn't it? Well, Mom shared a lot of things with me. As her memory became more impaired she might say, "I can't remember anything." I would answer, "That's OK, Mom. I will remember for both of us." She would smile and say, "OK." One day she said to me, "I am afraid to talk." We were in her room at the nursing facility. (I will never call them homes again.) "Why?" I asked. "I think I'm not making sense. Sometimes I can't think of the right thing to say, the right word. I am afraid I look foolish." "Don't you give that a thought, Mom," I comforted her. "We all love you. We understand. It's OK. I don't want you to ever stop talking to me. Do you hear me?" "Yes." Relief washed over her.
I remember when she said to me with tears in her eyes, "I think we are too close." It was just a few years into the Alzheimer's journey. "What do you mean?" I asked. "Well, when something happens to me you are going to hurt really bad." "Why don't you let me worry about that?" I suggested. "Mom, I want all the memories you can give me. They will get me through the times when I don't have you any longer." "Are you sure?" she asked. "Yes."
The lives of women have changed so much over the centuries...since the beginning of time! Women have been demonized, been designated second class citizens, not intelligent enough or too emotionally fragile to sit on a jury or vote in an election. Often they have been nameless. Never in history or social studies classes did I ever hear the story about Deborah Franklin, wife of statesman Benjamin Franklin. Never in literature classes did we read On the Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft, published 1792. I don't recall a time when we read poetry by Anne Bradstreet or Phyllis Wheatley. The stories of women were not worthy of being recorded.
Early in the summer 2011 I had lunch with my friend and former English professor. I talked...no, I complained about my situation and asked, "How do you break promises to God?" I thought Patti was angry with me. Later I apologized for making her angry. She replied, "I wasn't angry with you. I am upset about the deep hold of patriarchy over you."
Well, that was quite a statement!
One of my sisters-in-law recently asked me, "Are you sure you aren't Catholic?" I have a strong command of Guilt, but no, I'm not Catholic.
Patriarchy may have very good purposes. But it also has done a lot of damage, preventing many women achieving their dreams and goals because of gender: they are "female." Surely everyone understands that intelligence is NOT biological! Why do some men have so much difficulty understanding that intelligent wives are wonderful assets to the family. Why are they so intimidated by intelligent women? And where on earth would a 40-year-old man get the idea in his head that it was OK to correct a 58-year-old woman?
I am not a feminist. But maybe I bend toward egalitarianism. It takes both partners in a relationship to make a relationship work. When times are hard, those two partners have to work together if they stand any chance at all of getting through the hard times and come out on the other, sunny, side together. Not so unlike those early hunter-gatherers who traveled in small bands, following the food, and everyone working together just to insure the survival of human beings. Respect doesn't discern gender. Respect is something everyone deserves if they are willing to work to earn it.
Maybe next time I will talk about Respect.
(c) 2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Passing the Torch
The Hummingbird is gone from us now. Her passing was sudden and unexpected..."failed to thrive." She just wasn't strong enough to recover. And I can't say that I am sorry to see her suffering end. But I do miss her. We all do. This week also saw the demise of her last sibling, the third death of siblings since February 27. Uncle Ed (Ira) passed away Feb. 27, Mom on Aug. 23, and Uncle Dale on Oct. 8. I just hope that's the end for a while. I steeled myself to go into the funeral home last night. Lucille was falling apart the moment she walked in the door. She's one of the Spruce Street Gang. So many losses in that neighborhood in just the past 2-1/2 years, and her own husband is among that number. I shook away my own grief and reached out to comfort Uncle Dale's family.
I do that a lot, put my own feelings aside. I've come to the conclusion that's not a good idea. When you don't allow yourself to feel your feelings, you become numb and lose contact with the person you are inside. I'm trying to change that. At my age, shouldn't I know who I am and why I am, and shouldn't the why I am be more than just taking care of everyone around me? Shouldn't there be something more?
So, the blog that I began to document my mother's journey through Alzheimer's will take a new turn. I will write more about...life. Family. Me. Not that I'm selfish. But maybe I'm too selfless. That's the opposite end of the extremes. I want to be more middle of the road. ;)
Will I pick up more followers? I don't know. I have a grand total of 2. (Bless you both for taking the time and interest.)
(c) 2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All rights reserved.
I do that a lot, put my own feelings aside. I've come to the conclusion that's not a good idea. When you don't allow yourself to feel your feelings, you become numb and lose contact with the person you are inside. I'm trying to change that. At my age, shouldn't I know who I am and why I am, and shouldn't the why I am be more than just taking care of everyone around me? Shouldn't there be something more?
So, the blog that I began to document my mother's journey through Alzheimer's will take a new turn. I will write more about...life. Family. Me. Not that I'm selfish. But maybe I'm too selfless. That's the opposite end of the extremes. I want to be more middle of the road. ;)
Will I pick up more followers? I don't know. I have a grand total of 2. (Bless you both for taking the time and interest.)
(c) 2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All rights reserved.
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