Just a little thing, right?

Last week I called Prudential, checking on my policy, the death benefit, the beneficiaries, etc. So I needed to update the list of my beneficiaries because only three were listed. The little man sent me a form.

On the form, my name appears as policy holder. The last name is spelled correctly. The beneficiaries listed do not enjoy the luxury of that. I mean, I do not enjoy the luxury of having their names spelled correctly. So I will call again and tell the little guy that a) I'd like to blot out the names and start anew; b) the form does not have enough spaces to include all my children/beneficiaries.

Of course, I'd also like to ask how such a thing happens--you spell my last name correctly and misspell my children's last name. Same name, you know. But I won't ask.

Part 3

I believe we chose to come here, be born, live, come to earth. Likely we knew something of our purpose, maybe something about the people we would live with--maybe--and I'm pretty sure we knew we would have to be tested. I wonder if we chose our tests. I've never thought about that part, actually.

If Joyce chose her test, she must have known she'd have to be strong. Perhaps she knew her family, those who would love her most, would also need to be strong. Even if she did not choose her test, what she encountered and endured for the last five years asked a lot of her. It took from her her knowledge of things and people and all she had done and been, which was considerable and impressive.

Her test is over. I say she passed, and it seems to me her family also passed. I don't know for sure, because I'm an outsider looking in. But I judge it to be so from what I saw and heard from her children yesterday at her funeral. They were happy, proud of her, proud of their dad and his care of her, relieved that she has been released.

Probably some hard days lie ahead for them, but the happy part is that no one will have to look back with regret.

Hallelujah!

Part 2

My Good Friend

Carol Schiess, 2013

She could play the piano.

She could sing and write,

make a joke, laugh. 

She could cry, finish a sentence,

put her arms around me,

swim, run, hike twenty miles,

walk to a place

and come back.

She could sew, quilt,

call a friend on the phone,

be happy.  She could cook,

bottle grape juice, make jam,

grumble at her husband,

do math in her head,

play a game, know

the news of the world,

have an opinion, vote,

drive a car,

speak of her children

by name.

I can see her,

see the two of us

standing at her sink,

cleaning raspberries,

or we are out together

hunting asparagus or

singing for people, or laughing,

talking about our children,

or I'm just listening

as she plays something,

a Brahms Rhapsody perhaps.

But this was before.

I do not know if 

she remembers, if she

still has a mind's eye or

what she might see there.

I know there is no

singing in the house,

and her piano is a large

piece of furniture

she no longer sits down to.

This is a different kind

of loneliness--

for her, for everyone

who loves her--

because she is here,

we can see her, stand

next to her--not

like my mother

when she died. 

People have told me,

"Your friend is not lonely.

It's just you, your loss. 

Really.  She's fine,

oblivious, in fact,

living in her own

happy world."  But

that cannot be right.

Have they seen her face?

No, this is not about

me. It's about my friend,

what she has lost,

oh, what she has lost.

If it were about me, 

I would say how

sad I am, say

I miss her, might

even say I still

miss my mother

after thirty-five years,

but she died

only once. 

About My Friend, Part 1

One year for my birthday, Joyce gave me a card that showed a jolly little lady on the front. She was jumping up and down, obviously happy, and she was singing Happy Birthday to you . . . . When I opened the card I found out why the little lady was so happy. Her final words were, "Happy Birthday dear friend, I'm younger than you." I loved it.
 

And it's true. Joyce is younger by about a year and a half. 

Joyce taught me how to fold those pesky fitted bed sheets. It's the best way, and I think of her, of course, every time I wash and fold those sheets.

Just now I wish we had written the dates and places of everywhere we sang together, the two of us. Wendy Meacham played for us until she moved. My mother came up and played for us one holiday season. Barbara Atteberry played for us. I loved singing with Joyce. We were pretty good, too. People requested us, you know.

We also sang in choirs and choruses together, in church and out of church. In fact, I think we first met when I was directing a stake choir and we all went out to Marsing for a rehearsal.

Joyce and I may have talked about it--I think we did--that we should have babies together. Lo and behold, it happened, sort of. Richard and Stacy were born same month, same year. At any rate, our kids were friends for a time. Joel and Andrew; Sean and Paul. 

Lola, my daughter, owes much to Joyce because of those wonderful piano lessons for 12 years. I owe much to her for that also. I remember one time when I stayed in the house during a lesson and told Joyce afterward she should be a little tougher on Lola. Joyce told me she'd leave that to me. She didn't want the piano lessons to be at all negative. Smart. And wise.

Joyce knew the way to my house, and I knew the way to hers. When our kids were young, we could spend a good chunk of time together during a week. We went asparagus picking, onion hunting, went to the place in Ontario where you could buy canned goods cheap, made grape juice together. And we just enjoyed every minute of it all. I missed her very much every summer.

Joyce was fierce in her love of her husband and children. Fiercely loyal, too. And, yes, I heard her yell her displeasure at those refs. If her boys were playing, the ref had better be sure he knew what he was calling. She once asked a ref if he had is head up his you-know-what. Memorable. 

And Joyce was proud as can be of Stacy, of her discipline and hard work in gymnastics. Proud of all her kids, expecting a lot from them. I'm pretty sure she is very happy with their lives.

Last November, when I was visiting, the three of us sat at the kitchen table. Joyce and I were talking. She was responding well to things I said and answered a couple of questions quickly and accurately. It was so good. Then Ferris said something that upset her and she said quite a few words to him that were unintelligible. No question what the final words were, though. "Punch your lights out." But in a few minutes, when I was leaving, Ferris helped her stand up and she patted his chest with true affection. Good to see. I knew she knew him.

For nearly twenty years, because I moved away, Joyce and I saw each other only a few times. And our lives got busy. But when you're friends, time and space don't really matter. Then, a few years ago, at the beginning of all this, I got a phone call from Joyce. She was frightened. Since that time, we have talked about what happened or might be happening or couldn't possibly be happening. You know that word denial. Or maybe it's just our wanting to hope, to be optimistic.

It's true. Some of my recent visits with Joyce were great. We'd take a walk and have a good talk. Some were heartbreaking. But I would not trade them for money or for anything. Joyce was a person worth knowing, whatever situation she was in. 

I do not remember the occasion, but Joyce once sent a note to me that said, "You and I are friends. And friends are rare." I believe the kind of friendship we had was rare. A treasure. I'll always love Joyce.

This part is over

My friend died last night, at about 7:30.

Now, these words are not simply prosaic or clichéd. It's a relief and a blessing. For her and her family.

When I saw her Friday, it was clear she needed to go. That is the first time I have wished someone could die soon.

Even Wayne, I wished and prayed for him to live. I don't/didn't think his condition was like this, like hers. But perhaps it was and I just wouldn't see it. His death was sudden, though, and hers has been known of and waited for these last many months. I say it not because she was actively dying, as they call it, all that time. No. I say it because no one lives through Alzheimer's.

Her final decline and passing seem quick. That is good, really.

Visit

Yesterday I went to her home, and yes, she was there. I saw her, spoke to her briefly. But she was asleep, the sleep she will not awake from. Eventually--a day or two more, maybe five days, the hospice nurse told me--her heart will stop and she will stop breathing.

It was hard to see her that way. You know, she didn't look good. She is dying, and I don't know if that can look good.

I touched her shoulders. I scarcely knew what to say, but I told her I loved her and that we had a great friendship, told her to look for Wayne, told her goodbye. She may have heard me. The hospice nurse believes hearing is the last of the body's senses to die. But who really knows.

I know that was the last time I will see her in mortality.

Words are too weak to tell about this

She is dying. My friend is dying. That is what I learned yesterday when her son called me.I am stunned by this news.
Is it strange that I had been thinking about her? Just yesterday morning I looked again at my poem about her, and I wrote about her on April 1st, that silly April Fool's joke. Then, and I wasn't looking for it, I found what I wrote about her, December 2010.

"I don't have it," she told me. "I don't have anything like it."

That's what this latest doctor told her, and she has been to "so many" doctors. "I just have to take this one little white pill a day, and everything will be fine. Things are coming back. I'm so much better; the paranoia is gone." 

And so on.

I do hear improvement. When she called me last summer--and I'm not sure she remembers that--she felt like a prisoner in her own house, didn't know her husband, was afraid of him, didn't know what she had done, thought it must have been something terrible, thought I was the one person in this world she could trust to be her friend. Beyond that, and all this was by her own report, she couldn't remember things, couldn't say the words she wanted, was "sick and tired of this." 

Repeat and repeat. And not all of it made sense.  

Ok, then what is it?

Clearly, she did not know the truth. Neither did I, but here's the thing. If we "know" the truth we don't always believe it. At that point I was in early denial, thinking it was amnesia. She had fallen and cracked open her head, you know. Many stitches required to sew it back together. She could tell me about it.

And later, I realized just today, even with all we know of Alzheimer's, even when my visits with her showed that she really had it, I kept the thought somewhere in my brain that my next visit would find her improved, getting better.

Classic denial. Right?

Back to my original question. Is it strange that I was thinking about her? Maybe. Maybe not. Who can say about these things?

One thing I know. Now, suddenly, and it is sudden, on a rainy April 2, 2014, she has less than a week to live. I always thought I would die before her. I am older. But no.

I will go to see her tomorrow and hope she will still be there. She will not know me, will most likely be asleep. I don't care. I want to see her. Her son says my visit will mean a lot to his dad. But I'm not going for his dad.