Looking into my father in law’s eyes

The eyes that once danced with life---eyes that could focus with the intensity of an eagle after its prey or love with the affection of a mother for her baby--- now stare blankly at nothing, emotionless. I peer into those eyes, hoping for something: maybe the reboot of a soul, the reemergence of then into now, the return of the Old George I miss so much.

The first time I shook hands with him the palms of my hands were sweaty, for I was nervous. He was the father of the girl I wanted to take to the homecoming dance my senior year in high school. The only hitch was, she was four years younger than I.

“Hey Whitlock, going for the young girl?” my friends teased.

George wasn't amused.

And that was the first time I remember those eyes, squinting as they did in my direction, sizing me up, surveying my actions.

During the next three years that I would date his daughter, his suspicious eyes would come to look upon me with trust. His once restrictive eyes became giving ones.

And then I departed and didn't see those eyes for 27 years, until as circumstances would have it, I was reunited with his daughter.

On our wedding day, his eyes glistened with pride, and for the next ten years they would delight when we arrived and sadden when we left. And while we were together, they sparkled with a glint when he bantered and narrowed to a gaze when he reflected. And all the while those bright eyes bubbled like a fresh cherry limeade soda, adding fizz to life.

Until about a year and a half ago when they began to go flat and dull, dimming into a vacant stare.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia.  Many people use Alzheimer’s and dementia interchangeably, but they are not the same. Dementia is a broad category while Alzheimer’s is a specific type. Since my father in law’s diagnosis, I've learned that dementia isn't technically a disease but rather a group of symptoms that affect mental tasks like memory and reasoning. George can recall the past with specific detail and then repeatedly ask what the plan for the day is. Sometimes he is clear; other times he is confused.

Dementia can be caused by a variety of conditions. Alzheimer’s just happens to be the leading one.  Since it is a condition that results from damage to the brain, it’s not something one can determine to overcome with willpower.

According to the World Health Organization, 35.6 million people suffer from dementia.  It’s a major cause of disability among older people and places an emotional and financial burden on caregivers. I've already seen the effects on my mother-in-law. In their 52 years of marriage, he has been her rock, her navigator, her love. He is still very much the love of her life and always will be, but she can no longer lean on him as she once did, for he is more dependent on her than she is on him.

“How did you sleep last night?” I ask before they leave for the airport after a five day visit with us.

“To tell you the truth, I can’t remember where I slept last night,” he says, befuddled. “Now remind me, where are we going?”

“Oh yes,” he chuckles nonchalantly when I tell him, as if being unable to remember where he has been and where he is going and what he ate five minutes ago is no more serious than misplacing a fountain pen or forgetting a friend’s cell number.

I fought back tears then just like I do now as I write this column.

As he gets in the car to leave, I look square-on into those eyes, telling them with mine how much I love him, for I know not what if anything my father-in-law’s eyes will say the next time I see them.

Singing about Christmas in July

My wife occasionally bursts into song when it’s just the two of us at home.  “You have a really good voice,” I compliment her. “You should be singing in the choir.”

She disagrees: “My voice isn't that good. Remember, I didn't even make the Varsity Choir in high school.”

I think she’s improved.

I heard her again the other day.  She had the pitch and the tune down pat, but something was just not right.

The song, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” seemed out of place.

“Isn't that a Christmas song?” I asked as I peeked around the corner.

“Yes.”

“Why are you singing a Christmas hymn in the middle of July?”

“I like the song,” she answered.

At least she wasn't trying to spiritualize her way to a Christmas in July sale.

Not that I fault retailers for dragging Christmas from December into July.  What’s a marketer to do when there are no holidays between July 4^th and Memorial Day to use as an excuse for a sale? Grab one from another season, of course.  Since Christmas is the most commercialized of holidays, it works quite nicely.

But we can’t totally blame retailers for hijacking Christmas from its December perch.

According to one online source (http://ourfriendben.wordpress.com/) the first Christmas in July was celebrated by an Ohio fraternity in 1884. (I suppose there are worse excuses for having a party.)

But the phrase “Christmas in July” didn’t occur until ten years later in a movie. In response to a group of children rehearsing a Christmas song in July one of the characters says: “When you sing Christmas in July, you rush the season.”

In 1933 a girls’ camp in North Carolina celebrated Christmas in July by exchanging presents and welcoming a visit from Santa Claus.

“Christmas in July” showed up as a movie title in 1940.

In 1942 the Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. started celebrating Christmas in July with carols and a sermon on the subject. He wanted his congregation to share gifts with those in need as part of a worldwide mission effort.

Meanwhile, during WWII the US Post Office in conjunction with the military launched a Christmas in July campaign to assure that those serving overseas received their Christmas cards, letters, and gifts by Christmas.

It wasn't until the 1950s, at the dawn of the Madmen era, that the advertising agencies picked up on the Christmas in July idea as a way of promoting merchandise.

So there you have it: For over a century we've been celebrating Christmas in July in a variety of ways.

Christmas doesn't have to happen only in December.

And now with the polar invasion, the temperatures might cool just enough for you to settle around a fireplace, roast chestnuts, and imagine Jack Frost nipping at your nose.

So I ask myself, “Why can’t my wife sing a Christmas song in July?” 

She’s not rushing the season; she’s enjoying the presence of Christ as she sings.

After all, the hymn writer wrote the words, “O come, O come Emmanuel.”

If Christ can come to an out of the way country like Judea in an obscure village called Bethlehem, surely he comes to you when you sing about it in July, or any month.

And you don’t have to host a sale as an excuse for your carol.

Fallen Trees

I called it my African tree, although it had reached maturity long before I took possession of the property on which it stood. “Look at it,” I said to my wife as we sat on our back patio. “It’s out of Africa and out of place and so alone. It looks like one of those trees I knew from my summer in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Africa when I was a kid.”

And it did. The gnarled truck with its greenish yellow bark culminated in an umbrella shaped crown, like the trees you might see on the African savannah or pictured on the book cover of Out of Africa or The Poisonwood Bible.

Some evenings as Lori and I would gaze beyond the African tree to the orange backdrop the sunset’s glow  had painted, I would reminisce about that summer so many years ago in Africa:  how I would try to keep up with Dr. Giles Fort as he, in his khaki shirt and pants and pith helmet, would hustle to make his hospital rounds; the early morning sight and smell of smoke rising in the villages; the distant beat of African drums that would put me to sleep late into the night; the elephants which were still able to roam with some degree of freedom back then; my new found African friends singing, clapping, dancing around their campfires.   

The tree invited me back to a place and time that was no more but still was here and now, soothing my soul after the grind of another work day.

I liked that the tree was quite unlike any others in our backyard. My African tree was its own creation, unique, uncommon, individual.

Then I noticed one day my African tree had lost a limb. It was quite old, I guessed. Then it lost another.  One day I looked out and saw only open sky where my African tree had been. 

“What’s happened to my African tree?” I shouted to Lori as I rushed down to the edge of our property to investigate.

Maybe it was the strong wind, or perhaps lightening. But the tree was down.

My African tree: It was no more.

I missed my African tree.

What do you do with a fallen tree?

I researched it.  I could hollow out the trunk and use it as planter; I could make a tree trunk bench or log stool; I could even drill a hole in it and make a vase. Or I could cut up the wood and burn it.

But none of these ideas or similar ones appealed to me. I’m not crafty, and I don’t need to burn wood. Besides, much of the tree’s trunk was decaying.

So I let the tree lie there, resting in peace, like a grave marker for the deceased.

Somewhere in the cold of winter, the African tree faded from my memory.

Then spring came.

I was showing my twenty-two month old grandson what I had planted in my garden. And he was most engaged, or so it seemed to me. Then quite suddenly we were interrupted by something.

Even though he was clutching my hand, Eli almost tripped over the African tree’s trunk.

I looked down on it. The tree seemed to be pleading, “Hey, don’t you remember me?”

I was sorry for my African tree.

So I explained to Eli how my African tree was once special to me because of its uniqueness and the memories it prompted.

Eli studied the trunk as he gnawed on his pacifier.

So holding him in my lap, I sat down on my tree, and we talked some more.

“Let’s thank the Lord for what we can see of our beautiful Kentucky from this place, here on this tree trunk,” I said.

Eli nodded and declared, “Amen.” (It’s one of the first words I taught him.)

Now the two of us return quite regularly to our African tree trunk to sit and talk about nothing in particular.

My fallen African tree is the perfect perch for Eli and me to sit and ponder, to stop and stare at the open field below. It’s like one of those scenic rest stops you might chance upon as you travel a road to someplace else.

Only we aren’t going anywhere; we’re planted here at home, home in Kentucky.

And that’s okay, because from that tree, I feel the past as I peer all the way from Kentucky to Africa and back to the present moment.

Even as I hold the future in my lap.

In need of a hug?

She sits among several of her fellow residents at the long term care facility I visit, ensconced in her wheel chair, sometimes napping, sometimes staring. I suppose I've walked past her dozens of times, greeting her with a casual “Hello” or “How are you?” I can’t say I've taken the time to wait for a response. I've felt her tired eyes following me as I've quickly disappeared around the corner and down the hallway.

But this day, she stopped me cold in my tracks.

She seemed to cock her head slightly to the right, squinting in my direction, and before I could pass by, she declared in a gruff voice I heard for the first time: “You’re good looking.”

Suppressing a smile and glancing around to see if anyone else had heard, I thanked her.

“Well, you are,” she said, as if to preempt any disavowal on my part.

I shook my head from side to side, chuckling to myself as I walked down the hall. Then later, having made my visits, I returned to exit from the same place I had entered.

She was still guarding the hallway.

“Well,” I said grinning at her, “Am I?”

“Are you what?” she rejoined matter of factly.

“Am I still good looking?” I jokingly asked, but also testing her memory.

“Oh yeah,” she said with no expression, “You’re good looking.”

“I think I’m going to tell my wife what you said, just in case she’s forgotten or disagrees,” I teased.

“What’s her name?”

“Lori.”

“Well, she’ll agree,” she affirmed.

That evening, Lori enjoyed hearing about my new friend at the long term care facility.

The next week, when I visited the facility, she was in her usual place.

“How are you?” This time I waited long enough for her answer.

She wasn’t feeling well. “Probably a cold,” she told me.

Having made my visits, I spoke to her on my way out.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

Her words halted my speedy exit.

“Well, yes,” I answered, “I love you.”

“Then prove it,” she demanded.

I hesitated  before asking  with some degree of trepidation, “How?”

“Hug me,” was her simple answer.

That was it, a hug. That’s what she really wanted from someone.

Now picture this: Germaphobe that I am, I bend down and try pulling her towards me from her wheel chair so I can wrap my arms around the dear soul. And just as I get up close and personal, she begins coughing uncontrollably. Too late to retreat, I absorb it.

Then, with arms around her, I squeeze for just a moment.

“Did I prove it?” I ask.

“You did,” she said, apparently satisfied.

I've read where we need at least eight hugs a day to maintain emotional well-being. And I suppose there is truth in that. Maybe mine was just one among her eight for the day, but guessing by her reaction, it seemed like her only one.

You don’t have to be in a long term care facility to be there, in that lonely place, uncertain if anyone cares enough to reach down and extend a hand of grace.  And in your ache, your request remains buried deep within, for you fear you might receive the answer you dread hearing and so you endure the prolonged angst anticipating no response at all. You blend into the furniture you inhabit and fade into the walls surrounding you. You feel yourself melting into the floor beneath you.

Even as you still long for a rescue.

I suppose she had many hugs in her past--- but having come to this day in this place, an occupant in what is likely her last residence on earth---she needed that particular one. Life, when it comes to that point, is something of a bittersweet symphony: Having put so much in, we only want in return something beautiful, even if it is a tiny thing--- an embrace, a touch, or an acknowledgement that we exist. Even when we are beyond articulating it in sophisticated ways, we secretly hope some kind words we attempted might one day bear fruit in those to whom we have given them and that we in turn might reap some good in our time of need.

Even if it’s only a hug from a stranger.