Perspectives

“You really look like your mother,” Carol said to me yesterday at a Spruce Street gathering. Mary and Sandy agreed. (Carol is “Dorothy,” Mary is “Rose,” Sandy is Blanche and Dolly is Sophia. Dolly was absent.) I am amused. ROFLMBO!!!

When I moved in at Mom’s after Dad passed away, Mom and I settled into a pattern. Routine is an important point in Alzheimer’s. Every night after the 11 p.m. news broadcast, Mom and I watched reruns of The Golden Girls. When the broadcast was ended, Mom would put her crocheting down, go to the bathroom and change to her pajamas and say goodnight so I could get my rest.

Everything about being there was about a safe haven. Even with the stress of AD-related events, there was love and respect there. A certain camaraderie. I wished my husband would agree to live at my mother’s house and help me to take care of her. He declined.

In 58 days it will be two years since Mom’s passing. I am looking at things from a different perspective these days, some of which may be related to my approaching Purple-Ten birthday. 

Sometimes we come up against reality and clarity. We finally grasp that thing we have tried for so long to understand—or avoid. And we need to remember that moment of clarity when we are inclined to soften our resolve.

Change isn’t always easy but sometimes it’s necessary.

© 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A Parting in Progress

She and I were never close. Mom said the problem was that I intimidated my sister-in-law. Me? Intimidating? How on earth could that be? I am so “down-to-earth,” so non-threatening, harmless. Why would anyone be intimidated by me? I still don’t know the answer to that question.

Last week my nephew contacted me to let me know that his mom was in the hospital. She was in a coma, but nothing like he had ever seen before. She has been diabetic for a lot of years now and on dialysis for a number of those years. She didn’t take care of herself to control the diabetes. I wonder if she thought, “That happens to other people. It’ll never happen to me”? Mark thought his mother was dying. He was worried, afraid.

 I visited my sister-in-law in the hospital. I thought if she heard my voice, saw my face, it might help bring her out of whatever was going on. We have been at odds enough that her old feistiness might push her to respond. She opened her eyes at the sound of my voice. She looked at me. Her eyes looked terrible, but I didn’t say anything about that. She started to stir in the bed. But she didn’t speak. I didn’t stay long because there just didn’t seem to be anything that I could do.

It was told to me that Deb’s sugar level dropped to 10 and when she was found in that condition, they had no idea how long she had been at that level. The doctor feared brain damage. After a few days he ordered an EEG to see what was going on in her brain. 

For whatever reason, a feeding tube was inserted. I asked my brother if his son—who would not leave his mother alone, had been at the hospital since Saturday—had told them to do whatever they had to do to keep his mother alive. He said yes. 

It’s so hard to let go of someone who is dying. I understand that. But a feeding tube only prolongs the suffering for someone who is never going to recover, is never going to be more than a body in a bed. I don’t want that for myself. Why would I want that for her?

A few days ago Bill, my brother, talked to me. He said Deb woke and talked to him. She was so weak it tired her to talk much. But I think it gave him some hope that she would recover. In my mind I knew it was not that she would recover, but that moment of clarity that happens so often just before a person’s condition takes that turn for the worst that leads to their demise. Her health is just too fragile to rebound. 

My brother contacted me yesterday (May 15, 2013). Deb has been removed from life support. Hospice has been called in. Social services support has told him and his children that they are doing the right thing. I know this is a difficult thing to do.

My niece was there yesterday, at the hospital. I was glad to hear this. Her father and her brother need her to be there. She was nowhere to be found when our dad died in 2009. She was nowhere to be found when our mom died in 2011. Her grandparents. They were always there for her when she needed someone. And she failed to show up when they passed away. If she didn’t want to be there for them, why wasn’t she there for her family who needed her? And when she needed her family. I still do not understand that. 

So, here we are at the end of my sister-in-law’s life…her last days. She and I were never close. Her life was difficult, more than challenging. I hope for her to have a better place on the other side of the River. Deb, go in peace.

(c) 2013 ~ Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Short post for a long thought

What is respect?

What is self-respect?

© 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All Rights Reserved

Humming

Why didn’t I think of this before? Oh. I did. I just have never found time enough to do that, mostly because I’m always doing things that others think I should be doing instead of what I think I should be doing.

I want to plant a hummingbird garden. 

Those tiny birds are a wonder. I wonder how they beat those tiny wings so fast and if their hearts ever skip a beat the way they dart around. I wonder if they see colors since they don’t care for yellow or white, but like bold colors like orange and red. Ah, but they like pink, too. They don’t care all that much for roses or geraniums but gravitate to wildflowers and native flowers like columbine, coral bells, gladiolas, lilac, Mexican sunflower, red hot poker, scarlet runner beans and trumpet vine; those flowers that produce more nectar on which they feed. They apparently prefer jewelweed and cardinal lobella, which are wetland plants. 

For nesting, provide fuzzy plants like cinnamon fern, pussy willow, thistle and dandelion or other materials they may use for nesting. Pruning plants to promote flower growth rather than wood growth will encourage the hummingbirds to come back to your house. Planting patches of flowers, and flowers that don’t all bloom at the same time also will enhance a hummingbird garden. No insecticides should be used.

Hummingbirds eat spiders and insects. They bathe in shallow water, even if it’s just a few drops of water in a leaf. How economically and environmentally-minded they are!

Indigenous to Ohio, the ruby-throated hummingbird is found only in the Western Hemisphere, advises the ODNR (Ohio Department of Natural Resources). It is the smallest bird, weighing less than an ounce. Males are about the weight of a penny, females a little more. They summer as northerly as Canada and Nova Scotia, as easterly as the Atlantic Coast, as westerly as the central plains of the Great Plains and southerly to the Gulf Coast and the east coast of Texas. They are more of a tropical bird, arriving in Ohio between mid-April and mid-May and are gone, mostly, by mid- to late-August. They are the only hummingbird that nests east of the Mississippi River.

No wonder I like hummingbirds. They are solitary creatures. But they also are aggressive and challenge the other birds at the feeder. They nest near woods and/or water. Their feeding times are early morning, late evening and just before a major thunderstorm.

Some facts about ruby-throated hummingbirds:

·         * Males and females are together only for mating.

·         * Female rears the two offspring alone.

·         * Females are on nests by mid-June.

·         * Two broods may be produced each year.

·         * Two white eggs are the size of sweet peas.

·         * The nest is half the size of an English walnut shell.

·         * Life expectancy is 2-3 years.

The recipe for making food for hummingbirds:

1 part sugar to 4 parts water.

Boil mixture for 2-3 minutes. Let cool before filling feeder. Store unused portion in the freezer for later use. You may add a little red food coloring if you like, but it is not necessary. Do not use honey because of potential issues of fungus.

When the food in the feeder becomes cloudy or dirty, get rid of it, clean the feeder and provide fresh nectar for them. 

As I read this information about hummingbirds, a plan is formulating in my mind. A pool of water surrounded by wetland plants…Already I have honeysuckle twining on our fence. There is plenty of dandelion around. Where did they come from, seemingly overnight? But the issue is the dogs…who think they can tramp on anything within that fenced in backyard.

(c) 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield