Dorothy at 76

She lives in a trailer on the side of a highway five miles from the poorest county in the United States. She lives alone on property where her family has lived for 7 generations. You might see her in grubby sneakers and a man’s sweatshirt on the five acres between the highway and the woods.  Her garden had more weeds than vegetables and she cuts five acres of grass in the shapes of ovals, circles, figure 8s, or paisley prints.

Not yet 80, she lives her life as she chooses, rebelling against the schedules she obeyed   before she retired. A good book may keep her reading until 3 am because she knows she can cut off the alarm and go back to sleep until 10 am.

When she and her friends go out to eat, people peer at their table to see if their gaiety is caused by alcohol. The group may range in number from 3 to 25, but they obviously love each other’s company whether playing games, singing hymns, or joining hands in prayer around a dying neighbor. None have to be alone unless they so choose.

She has fond memories of colleagues she taught with for 25 years and tries to stay in touch as much as a busy retirement schedule allows, the schedule SHE decides. She was most proud of being a member of the best faculty in Alabama and bragged about it to all she met at state meetings.Their sisterhood shifted  and increased with retirements and deaths, but a core of twenty supported each other through life changes, desegregation, overcrowding, and years of working toward SASC accreditation. No matter how fiercely they argued over policy decisions, they formed a united front in enforcing them. They shared stories of their children’s illnesses, their struggles with teenagers, and the sadness of caring for ailing parents. They went to each others’ kid’s weddings and  cried at the wakes of their friends parents , knowing that their time of sorrow would come.

 She has lunch regularly with friends of 60 years ago. They take turns sharing news of other high school classmates who survive. Then they share pictures of grandchildren and look for likenesses to the middle generation.  Sometimes they cry together and other times they giggle like the 15 year-olds they had been. Every 5 years they invite the whole class to a homecoming party and end the fun remembering those who already have gone on.

She’s always starting something.  A senior group, a library, and meals on wheels program. She helped organize a volunteer fire department. She became a nationally certified firefighter at 62.  Even though she’s  far too fat to go in a burning building, she’s lobbied for funds, baked cakes, kept the minutes,

comforted victims,  and even stomped out grass fires. She published a department newsletter and collected data on residents for emergency calls. She was awarded firefighter of the year at the county awards banquet.

Her unsuccessful attempt to get all the community reading left her with thousands of books in the 16x24 foot addition to her home. She donated 400 books from her private collection to the new high school and collected enough to complete her vow of 1000.  She reads 2 to 5 books a week and is always handing someone a book, “you ought to read’.

She tries to learn some new skill each month, but good enough is good enough. She is not a perfectionist in any one of them. She painted summer clouds on a bedroom ceiling and trees along the walls.  Her kitchen, where all her entertaining is done, is repainted every year or when the feeling strikes, or if she finds a cool paint cheap.

She has a new project, writing for newspapers and blogs online.

Alabamapioneers.com. She loves to say,” just GOOGLE ME”, as if she is a real author. No money yet, but many articles in print to establish a resume’.

She has cut 1000s of silhouettes of children freehand and is delighted when people come up and say, “My mom still has the silhouette you did of me 40 years ago.” Every class had the experience either for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, or Mother’s Day. Her years of cutting for charities have past, but occasionally she cuts for a family gathering. Somehow the ones done of her own children finally dropped from the refrigerator door into the waste basket.

After eight years of caring for her beloved husband who had both strokes and Alzheimer’s  she volunteered with Hospice and helping dying patients and their families. These experiences helped when she was hanging out with her mother through declining years.

Four biological children became six with stepdaughters, one found in the months before her husband’s death who was warmly welcomed into the Gast bunch. This process was added to the family history. Now there are six children, fifteen grandchildren, and sixteen great-grandchildren.

She is alone, but never lonely. She has prints by Monet, and Van Gogh, movies and music at hand, many internet friends, and more family  than she can afford birthday, graduation, wedding, and Christmas gifts for. She has known sorrow and grief, pain and disappointment, but   found the ridiculous to laugh in all of them.  Her silly grin implies she is an innocent of world’s troubles, but she has faith that the God who took care of her in the past is still able to do it in the future and will someday escort her HOME.

She’s in her bonus years and would just as soon be gone, as doing her own thing here. Although she envies those organized enough to put tomorrow’s to do list on her night stand, she’d rather wake up and ask, “LORD, what are we going to do today.”

She loves to feed people. Not the stiff formal china, crystal, silver, centerpiece on the table kind of entertaining, but the “Hey I just made a pot of chili and some cornbread, come over in an hour” call. “And bring your dominoes”. She’ll probably try to send food home with you. Especially if you wash the dishes.

Her ambition is to live a long time without growing old and has the genes for that. Her greatest fear is losing her usefulness, of being storehoused like an out of date book taking shelf space from the newer additions. So she stores her thoughts and memories in words, as  bits and bytes of data. Maybe  she’ll leave tracks on hearts and minds  that share a common vibration. Soon books themselves will no longer be useful.

No more migraines from trying too hard, she has chosen to be transparent. If you visit and her house is a mess, just scoot the newspapers out of a chair and sit down. If you want a cup of coffee, help yourself. You can even make it if the pot is not on.

 She might let you help rescue a preloved bear for a toy drive, or wrap gifts for a Sunday School class. You can help plant a garden or paint your own creation on her wall beneath van Gogh’s Starry Night. She doen’t try to pretend that she is pretty or smart or even organized.. She’ll just be herself and let you be you. She’ll think you are wonderful anyway.   

By Dorothy Gast   December 19 2011

Ddgast1@aol.com

Or GOOGLE Dorothy Graham Gast

Changing Hats

Last night it snowed. Only an inch accumulated, but I celebated with a cup of hot Russian tea and pleasant memories. I’m sure you remember the good imes our families have had.

            After almost a month in hospital after O. J.’s fall  and the necessary hip surgery, we are home and far behind in our correspondence. A trip to Walmart on Sunday, December 3, wound up with his fall in the parking lot and a long stay away from home. When I had wished for an expense paid trip with meals, laundry and entertainment provided, I did not expect the answer to be at hospital. With gratitude for its availibity I must confess dissatisfaction with the hospital food and the narrow cot that I had to sleep on. Do the rooms on a cruise cost $425 a day?

            We narrowly escaped a stay in a nursing home by convincing doctors, nurses, and therapists that we can manage at home. After counting the hospital staff that trooped trough our room each day and noting their specialization, I took stock of our routine.

            The schedule at home is hectic. The housekeeper starts coffee and brings in the paper about 6 am. The nurse wakens O. J. checking vital signs and gives him a glass of juice. An aide then bathes, dresses and diapers the patient. The housekeeper changes the bed puts the clothing and bedding into the  washer.

            The dietitian prepares breakfast, determines the nutrient dense menu for the day, and makes the shopping list. The nurse transfers the patient to a wheelchair, transports him to the kitchen table and spoon feeds him.

            The nurse dispenses the after breakfast medicine. 

            The physical therapist moves him to the living room and leads the prescribed exercises, sometimes manually moving limbs no longer controlled by the patient.

            The social director sets the patient up in from of the television to listen to videos since patient can’t see while the bookkeeper handles financial affairs, mediates with Medicare, and interprets the snowstorm of insurance paperwork.

            As the video ends the therapist rolls the patient into bedroom, removes wheelchair footrests, and side handles, lifts patient to stand wobbling on good leg, then pivots him next to the bed and gently lowers him to a sitting position. With arms under patient’s shoulder and knees she pivots him into prone position on the hospital bed. She tucks him in, turns on he baby monitor, and closes the blinds to darken the room.

            Housekeeper takes bedclothes and pajamas out of washer put puts them in the dryer. Then she starts a load of sweat clothes for her and the patient.

            Dietitian prepares food for patient and staff then sets the table for use after patient’s nap.

            Housekeeper vacuums, folds and puts away laundry.(she no longer irons sweat suits or sheets.) and answers  phone. Therapist reverses transporting process, and delivers patient to the table where nurse administers  other medication before lunch.

            The afternoon shift repeats the processes.  The work is not as bad as changing hats all day long.

            Ten years ago a life like his would have sounded like a prison sentence, limited and frustrating. Somehow in this challenging lifestyle there are many frustrations like answering the question, ”Who are you?” and the demand, “I want to go home” 100 times a day, and the constant weariness of 24/7 responsibility.

            Yet, I find moments of pure joy when he seems to recognize me, and hours of peace going about the necessary duties, and even days of contentment simply doing a variety of jobs menial to sophisticated with all my heart. Sounds stupid, I know.

            There are a few times when we have home health care professionals who make home visits following critical episodes like strokes, heart attacks or hospitalizations. I learn from them, but I also teach them. I teach LPNs to warm towels lotions, and clothing before putting them on the patient, and that they must always talk him through the procedure even when patient doesn’t seem to understand the words.

             I have taught physical therapists how to devise equipment from available materials to meet the special needs of the patient. We’ve each found that my active participation in every procedure not only teaches me, but ensures the best care from paid caregivers.

            Yes, I know that O. J. could die at any time. The aortic aneurysm has increased to 6.5 centimeters. We have faced the fact and discussed it and made specific legal and financial provisions.  During the time we were served by Hospice when doctors had given up last year, I researched the process of preparing for death by patient and family caregivers. I share what I have learned with all I work with.      

     Some professional have suggested that I write magazine articles or books on subjects researched, and implemented. Somehow dissecting and reassembling information, processing it into daily case management turns a time that might be morbid into a creative triumph of the human spirit. At least it changes the location in my brain to a less subjective emotional activity and relieves  my anxiety.

      I have learned that  the grace of God covers my shortcomings and gives me strength day by day. I'm learned about care-giving and being able to accept myself when I know that I'm sometimes cross, sometimes forgetful, and always weary. But I am here and willing and loving and also thankful for the privilege of caring for the one I love.

Picking up the Pieces

For almost eight years my life had been focused on caring for O. J. through his continuing strokes and TIAs,heart attacks, cancer, and dementia. His last two months were spent in a medical unit at Tuscaloosa Veteran's Administration Medical Center. Grief had overwhelmed me for weeks before his passing. We had talked of when this time would come, over the years of his illness and he was determined that I would resume a normal life as soon as possible after his passing. He had little respect for those who hung on to grief for months and years and often said it was not so much sadness for the one gone as self pity for the one left behind.
Working through the steps of grief through sadness, confusion, and anger came easier for me since I had faced them with him as he dealt with his own feelings. Nights of crying became less as days were filled with the many legal and fiscal obligations of death and the decisions for assuming the role of single head of household.

I taught my ladies's Sunday School class the day after the funeral for the first time in three years. I invited friends over for dinner immediately and we shared memories, laughs and tears over the table we'd shared so many times before.
I wrote long personal thank you notes for flowers, food, and other kindnesses during the funeral days. If tears came I let them flow without apology and kept Kleenex handy. I took time to visit those who had been widows far longer and gained from their wisdom.

No one had told me that a reverse "nesting instinct" was often part of the process of finding who I now was and the direction my life should go. Old clothes were sorted and given away. Painting and other repairs long delayed were completed. I volunteered as a Hospice helper and took the training for visiting and helping families dreading a member's passing. I sat with clients as they dictated funeral desires and plans for those who families refused to talk of such things. I took casseroles to families who work schedules made cooking a depensible chosre. People called me to accompany them to funeral homes for moral support as they bought a funeral.

I lost 25 pounds in 3 months without trying. The lump in my throat made eating difficult and soon I was eating less. Walking, working out flower beds and Hospice work made me more physically active and helped me sleep at night. Writing out my feelings and putting the writings aside gave me release and kept me from exploding over those in my path.

By August I was ready to go back to school. Although I had three degrees in professional areas, I wanted to develop skills in a different direction. A local community college offered low tuition for seniors and a full menu of subjects for retirees. I signed up for credit courses, noncredit ones, and all the free self help classes available. It was fun back in the classroom again pn the student side of the desk. Nineteen years olds were helpful and professors were patient. I loved it.

The Wall-Dealing with grief

The early morning sunlight burned through my swollen eyelids as I struggled to hold on to the last remnants of sleep.The funeral had been Saturday, and family members were home and back to their normal pursuits. O. J. was gone. The long months fighting all the different complications of his illness had ended and it would never be us again. Tears began to form. Then in my mind I could hear what O. J. would say, “Quit your bawling and get out and do some of the things you’ve wanted to do before you became my nurse. Get busy with your own life.”

A shower and a cup of coffee later, I thought of all the jobs long put off. That dark paneled hallway was so depressing. There was some pale yellow paint left over from a touch up. Just take down all the pictures, pull out the nails, and paint. By 7:00 am, paint, rollers, a short ladder, and a tube of toothpaste were sitting on the strewn newspapers that covered the hall carpet. I’d read that you could stop up the nail holes with toothpaste if you had no spackling.

If I had company for supper I wouldn’t have time to start crying. I called my mother, a widower friend, and two couples that often came for dinner in other years and invited them over for a home cooked meal at 7:00 pm.

What could I cook that didn’t require watching? There was that frozen turkey bought to cook for Christmas, before we spent December and January in the hospital. There were canned green beans, a uncut pound cake someone had bought, plenty of salad makings from a raw veggie tray left from the wake. I thawed the turkey in the microwave, rubbed it down with seasonings and oil, placed it in the oven at 275. I mixed a Jello salad and placed it in the frig. Supper was on it’s way.

A no longer valid credit card smoothed the toothpaste into the nail holes and left an even finish for painting. The 12 foot hallway was covered in under an hour, but the light color showed dents and shadows of the patched nailholes. The water based paint was drying fast.
Camouflage! That’s what I could do. I could make flowers the way a late night decorating show illustrated. Random flowers. There was a can of blue paint just the color of delphiniums that had hardly been used in the shed. With a one inch paint brush I painted blossoms 12 inches apart at my eye level all the way down the hall. Not bad. 18 inches below that row I repeated with blossoms alternating halfway between those in the first row. The design was repeated down the hall on both sides.from floor to ceiling.
As I ate leftovers for lunch I surveyed my project. There were still rough spots under the yellow paint. Green stems and leaves. I could make green Y shapes for stems and a leaf for each blossom. Just a dash of green connected to each flower. Still needs a highlight. Butterflies! Semiabstract. Two brush flips of orange randomly placed. They harmonized nicely.
The school bus roared down the road. It’s 3:30, and I’ve got company at 7:00. Paint dripped newspapers were tucked away in the trash. Paint cans disposed off. Brushes washed for another project. Yellow, green, blue, and orange drops, spots, and smudges were on my hands, my face, my glasses, and my clothes. After I bundled the clothes in the trash, I ran a hot bubble bath and scraped paint off me until I was presentable.
The good dishes that had not been used for years went on the Damask tablecloth with matching cloth napkins and silver while I listened to the 5:00 o’clock news. Turkey smells filled the house. I stirred up a pan of cornbread dressing and poured it in around the turkey.
A touch test proved all the paint dry except the butterflies. By the time guests arrived there would be no problem. A flicker of guilt about writing thank you cards for funeral flowers was dismissed with “I’ll think of that tomorrow'. A spray of air freshener before a quick run with the vacuum cleaner lightened the mood of the house.
Just 15 minutes with my feet propped up can get me going again. Why not a dressy dress for a party feel? A little makeup and hairspray and I was ready when the doorbell rang at 5 minutes until 7:00. Guests helped me take up the turkey, dressing, and green beans. One tossed the salad and brought out the Jello. Another put ice in glasses and poured the tea. As we bowed for the blessing I could almost hear O. J. say, “That’s more like it. It’s time for you to build a new life.”

The knife and the monster

The family collected their favorite stories about the incidents during O. J.'s illness. We all were aware of hallucinations he'd experienced.
One evening as I was washing supper dishes, he called from the bedroom. He wanted me to see the show. Expecting to see a television show, I found him sitting upright in bed. The room was silent.
"It's Jimmy Rodgers' Band, " he said.
"I don't see anything"
"They are right there" he pointed to the double doors of the closet. " They are playing You are My Sunshine."
"My uncle Johnny is playing the banjo. Robert has a Jew's Harp".

I sat in the silence as he described a concert he had been to in Meridian, Mississippi when he was a teen. For almost an hour he described singer, songs, and instruments." His enjoyment was obvious as well as his annoyance at my not seeing it.

When it faded, he lay down and went to sleep. I never saw or heard anything, but had no doubt about the pleasure he had in reliving a memory.

The worse time was before he was wheelchair bound.

One night I wakened to find something uncomfortably hard at my side. I turned on the bedside lamp and found a very sharp 15 inch hunting knife. I reached over and shook O. J. and asked him about the knife.

He had wakened earlier he said and in the dim light from the bathroom saw a monster making a lot of noise. He found the knife and brought it to the bed only to find me sleeping. He put the knife there in case the monster came back.

The next morning I gave the knife to my son in law and purchased supplies to stop my snoring.

Which one has Alzheimer's?

During the time O. J. was in a wheelchair I was often rushed and disorganized. One Good Friday morning he had an appointment with the doctor at 8 am for tests and consultation later. Because it was a school holiday, Misty had five girls spending the night with us. We left them sleeping at home and drove to Tuscaloosa under threatening skies. The radio said there was a tornado watch for Pickens County less than 5 miles from our house.
A sprinkling rain began as we drove into the parking lot and thunder roared in the background. I jumped out of the car, pulled out the wheelchair, opened it, and rushed to O. J.’s passenger’s door. O. J. sat calmly in his freshly ironed shirt and dress slacks with his hat on his head. I had carefully shaved and dressed him and he was neat as he’d always been.
I scooted the chair as close to the opening as possible, bent down to help him out of the seat. His hat was in the way. He took the hat off and placed it on my head sidewise. I moved his legs around and put his feet on the ground. He put his arms around my neck and I reached around and clasped his belt from behind to lift him to a standing position. When he was upright, I hugged him and turned him so he could sit down in the wheelchair.
The rain was harder. I unlocked the wheel and we rolled through the door and to the reception desk where several nurses were standing. I greeted them, filled out the necessary forms, then rolled O. J. to a place he could wait to go to the lab.
I drew a relieved breath and went back to the west facing glass entrance door concerned about the teenagers 15 miles due west. The rolling clouds were so dark the door served as a mirror and I saw my reflection. A man’s hat sat sidewise on my head, my blouse was misbuttoned, my slip showed beneath my skirt, and I was wearing a brown pump and a black wedgie.
One of the nurses behind me said, “Which one did you say has Alzheimer’s?”

I stand here in the second row of our little country church looking at the gray steet casket heaped with beautiful flowers and my eyes are dry...

I cried when I saw my husband paralyzed by his first stroke when only his eyes could move, and the terror in them showed his horror at being entombed in uncooperative flesh.
I cried in the months he spent struggling to learn to walk and talk again and found profanity the all purpose language easiest to communicate.
I cried when his arthritic knees worn by 35 years of bending, stooping, and lifting in an industrial plant hurt him so much he could hardly walk.
I hid my tears when the man who could repair anything but a broken heart took a simple blender apart down to the smallest elements to fix a twisted belt, then realized he was too tired to put it back together again (as if anyone could by then).
I cried when he got lost coming home from Clanton and wandered 14 hours through Selma and Montgomery before finding his way home to Tuscaloosa, and Romulus and to me.
I cried when grown men remembering his strength turned their faces away from him.
I cried the Saturday he reached for his coffee cup and missed by 15 inches and we looked in each others’ eyes and knew he’d had another stroke.
I cried when the doctors agreed he probably would not live through the night and I begged the Lord to leave him just a little longer.
I cried when I knew he’d had a heart attack 24 hours before the lab confirmed it.
I cried that Thanksgiving evening when he hurt so bad we went to the emergency room and the MRI found a 4 centimeter aneurysm behind his belly and the prognosis was three to six months.
I cried two years later when the CAT scan said the aneurysm was 6 centimeters and you could watch it pulse in his belly from 20 feet away.
I cried when he sat in his old blue recliner in the house where we had lived for 30 years and begged to go home.
I cried the times he got lost in our own home and a three year old grandson helped him find his way.
I cried when he called “Dorothy “ 100 times an hour and did not recognise me when I answered.
I cried when he called me Mama and meant his mama.
I cried when he asked me who I was and I said “Dorothy”, and he said, ” I was married to Dorothy, but she was young and pretty.”
　
I cried when he lost all sight except the sliver of light you might glimpse between fingers standing tight together in front of your face.
I cried when I walked out of Walmart and found a circle of strangers where he had climbed out of the car and fallen in the parking lot with a broken hip.
I cried when he lay blind and crippled and confused and held on to my hand and smiled when he heard my voice.
I cried when the swallowing that had become so difficult stopped, and his food became formula I pumped through a tube into his stomach.
I cried when he begged for a drink of cold water and a few swallows would have drowned him..
I cried when I took him to the hospital because we both knew he was dying and I could no longer care for all his needs.
I cried when the doctors said advanced Parkinson’s Disease and no one had told us so we might treat it.
I cried in the hundreds of hours by his bed just talking so he could find peace in the sound of a familiar voice.
I cried the day while bathing him I noticed that his brown calloused hand that could fix anything but a broken heart had become soft and pink and smooth like an infant‘s.
I cried when his family gathered around his hospital bed and told him goodbye and how much they loved him and honored him and would miss him and the nurses came in and told us to go home and scolded us for overreacting,
but we knew and he knew....
I cried when his labored breathing stopped and his loved ones watched the pulse in the hollow of his throat slow to a stop as we each gently touched him and told him “Godspeed”.
In front of his grey steel coffin with the flowers there is a picture of him taken when his face was filled with pride and joy and love of life on his grandson’s wedding day .
His glasses rest half opened on his worn bible reminding, ”I once was blind...”
And I know sees us from a loftier post.
No longer bound by time and space, years and pounds, and serial numbers,
his existance is light, and beauty and life unfathomable to our human eyes.
Though my eyes are damp, my head is high in pride in the life my husband lived so well and joy that he is face to face with our Lord.
There is peace in knowing we shared life from its heights to the depth and there is hope when I regard the fine young people he fathered and know the world is a better place because he taught four generations about living.
Our children stand straight and true, solid reminders that a man passed this way and in his humble way loved and laughed and cried and-- sometimes cursed-.
and left a precious legacy to those touched by his presence.
I’m not crying anymore..
Besides, he never liked to see me cry.