REBECCA

     Rebecca has Alzheimer's.  More accurately, Alzheimer's has Rebecca.  For this once elegant, kind lady would never have willingly submitted to the indignities that this thieving disease imposes.  I learned this sad news when I saw family members this week in a local restaurant.

   I initially met Rebecca and her family in 1991 when I became pastor of their United Methodist congregation.  From then until 2000, when I was reassigned elsewhere, I knew her to be one of my trusted advisers, confidantes, and friends, although she was not a member of the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee, the formal Personnel group. When I was completing the various requirements for Elder, i.e. Ordination in our tradition, Rebecca provided feedback and insights for the many 'hoops' that I needed to satisfy.  Along with Clarice and Lola, two other loving matriarchs of the congregation, she was always a leader in the church's  work and an 'example' for the younger generation--women and men.

    In the years since leaving that community, I have seen her infrequently, most recently at the festivities around weddings of two of her grand-sons.  Last Summer at Seth's wedding, she seemed quite lucid, although other indignities of aging  were 'slowing me down'.  Retrospectively, she was already becoming adept at concealing the early manifestations that have since become obvious.

    Earlier I wrote about people who allow us to 'stand on their shoulders', and hence make it possible for us to 'see further and more clearly', as well as about 'kar-ak-ters', folks whose individuality adds seasoning to the 'vanilla' of the mundane places of life. Rebecca has been such a  person for me. 

    I mentioned that she was 'elegant'.  But that did not preclude her working alongside Scotty in the gritty tasks in their large chicken houses and other farming jobs.  They also liked to 'go places and do things', especially when he still had his own airplane.  A favorite story, often retold, was of their drive to Alaska.  The original plan was for shared driving.  According to Scotty's version, sleepiness overtook her on one monotonous stretch and thereafter he opted to do all the driving.  Ocracoke on the Outer Banks of North Carolina was a longtime favorite fishing destination.

    Books were a passion for her and she read constantly.  When we first met, she worked part time in a bookstore in a nearby mall.  For her, that was like being a child in a candy store.  As Alzheimer's has exacted its toll on her cognitive strengths, her reading fare is no longer of the same depth and literary styles.  No doubt, Rebecca could have written her own book because she and her husband have been raconteurs extraordinaire.

   The many insults to the dignity of one's previous Being that Alzheimer's can bring are now often Rebecca's experience.  Her son and daughter-in-law who live nearby are primary caregivers who know the many challenges described in The Thirty-Six Hour Day, one of the best books about caring for someone with the disease.

    Selfishly, I hope that my earlier efforts to express  appreciation for her influence were adequately conveyed and heard.  Because now, alas, although I know my debt, I also know that she can no longer 'hear' it.  At the risk of sounding trite and trivial,  I am aware that there are several other 'Rebecca's' to whom I would be remiss not to say 'Thank You'.  Do you have any?
    
       Satchel

      

    

   

THE PAST AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE

  
Have you said or heard anything like . . .

  "That's in the past; what does that have to do with now?";  "Get over it, suck it up; it happened long ago."; "I'm not interested in the dead past."  Or, by contrast, "Those who forget the past are doomed to relive it." (George Santayana); . . . Perhaps you have your own quote about the past and how you interpret its place in your life.

    [An acknowledgement of the bases of my biases: by formal training, I am both an academic historian (PhD, UNC-CH in 1977) and a clinically trained psychotherapist.  In both of these vocations, I have grown in an appreciation of how 'the past' influences, informs,  intrudes into the present.  Part of my therapy training has been in EMDR (a modality for treating trauma of various types and severity).  A fundamental premise of EMDR is that 'the past is alive in the present'.]

      ***I believe that there are at least two approaches to this PAST business and making the two synonymous probably confuses matters.  

    Often in these posts, I have stressed my belief that while an occasional visit to the past can be pleasant, 'living in the past' is unhealthy.  This is Nostalgia in the extreme.  'Uncle George' Mowry, my dissertation director, told our research seminar that the  word's origin connoted a 'homesickness of the soul'.  We might call it a longing for 'the good old days'.  
A few years ago, I saw a newspaper story with the headline: The Good Old Days: They were Awful".  "Retrospective Falsification" someone else has labeled the nostalgia. Not surprisingly, its appeal is strongest when the present is filled with anxiety and uncertainty and there is a great desire for Escape.  By contrast, for many persons the past is 'where' horrible things happened and 'who wants to return there !?!'  So, the common thread in this posture toward the past is "escape" . . . either escape the fearsome present by returning to 'the good old days' or escape the god-awful past by denying its importance.

     When my therapy clients tell me (in various ways) that they are uninterested in 'the dead past', I concur . . . up to a point.  And, here is how I have a  different  'use' of the past.
'How do events, relationships, choices, etc. from another time
still impact us, whether we can immediately identify them or not and how can we use this awareness for improving the Present and Future?' Several years ago, a sentence from a book that I was reading impacted me so much that each year after I purchase a new appointment calendar, I inscribe this on the front page: "The emotional processes that basically steer our lives will influence us, whether we recognize them or not." [Haverick,  The Therapist's Own Family]  (And, as you perhaps noted, I continue to use a 'paper calendar' rather than utilize  one of my electronic devices.)

      This particular post has been in embryonic form for a few days.  Then, in this morning's newspaper, came a powerful and poignant narrative illustrating "my point".  The author has given her permission to cite and quote from her story. For her account, see Greensboro (NC) News and Record, May 10, 2014, "Motherless daughter finds her calling" by Leigh Olsen. The article is more accessible by an internet search for "Personal Adds: Motherless daughter finds her calling" by her name. 

     When Ms Olsen was  11 years old, her mom died at age 36.
Her early reactions were to avoid overt grieving in order to 'protect' other family members.  "What I never realized, until recently," she acknowledged, "was that because of my need to protect others from experiencing pain, I kept myself from beginning to heal."  When she found the book, Motherless Daughters, by Hope Edelman, her ex-husband criticized her for "living with too many ghosts" and she put the book away.  In time, her new husband learned of the book and enthusiastically encouraged her to read it.  "Finally," she wrote, "the healing process had begun"  and that included correspondence with and meeting Ms Edelman.  She has subsequently begun a Motherless Daughters support group in her area as a way to help other women in their healing.  More details can be found on her blog, http://momlesslife.wordpress.com . 

    While I did not ask her opinion on the title, I would not be surprised if Ms Olsen might concur that the past ain't what it used to be. (with apologies to any and all for whom the slang, ain't, ain't good grammar.)

    Satchel

My gratitude to Ms Olsen for allowing me to include portions of her article and to my wife who initially spotted the article and called it to my attention.

     

AIRPORTS AND AIRPLANES

     I began this post after spending three hours in the waiting area of the Charlotte airport to begin a flight of projected duration of an hour and  a half.  Several variables of unknown impact ... Thunderstorms, possibility of tornadoes and flooding, traffic conditions, unfamiliarity with this airport . . . had prompted me to leave much earlier than proved necessary.  I was scheduled to reach my destination  two + hours from the time I began writing ... approximately the time I would have arrived were I to have driven, having departed at the same time.

    There were benefits this way: limited traffic on the interstates; when I made FOUR passes through the airport and around its perimeter while attempting to locate the entrance for long-term parking, there were few cars adding to the frustration; I had passed through TSA security and found my gate prior to 7:30; opportunities to 'people watch', nap and begin a new book, and being less fatigued when I arrive.

    By Atlanta, O'Hare, LaGuardia, etc. dimensions, this is not a large facility.  There are the usual "Do not leave your luggage unattended",  beware of "suspicious" persons routine announcements.  Arrival and departure announcements are generally intelligible . . . quite different from those formerly heard in train and  bus terminals. "The train for Hackenburdgsackentbridgere will be leaving from gate twentylevenbluemillion at eleventyeleven . . ."

   Airplanes and airports and I have a long history.  Contrary to what some might allege, I was not at Kill Devil Hills when Wilbur and Orville Wright made their initial flight. It was, however,  a 'big deal' in the 1940' and 50's when our parents took my brothers and me to the old Raleigh-Durham Airport observation deck to watch the planes come and go.

    Do you remember your first-ever flight?  Mine was in 1962, flying from Greensboro, NC,  to Lexington, Ky.  At that time, the airport in near-by Winston-Salem was still a commercial facility.
Almost immediately after takeoff, the pilot began the approach to Winston-Salem, a part of the itinerary of which I was unaware.  The plane shook, the retro engines whined and roared and I was sure that I was about to die.

    Even so, the following year, when "Uncle Sam" began expressing an interest in having me in 'his' military service,  I went to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base for tests for Officer Training School.  I passed the general exam and the navigator exam.  I knew that my math skills were not adequate for the pilot test.  The following day, I 'failed' the vision exam.  Thereafter, I joined the only Army Reserve Aviation unit in the state and my MOS (military occupation) was aircraft flight dispatch.  Being stationed at the Third Army Flight Detachment in Atlanta, I often had opportunities to fly on 'hops' with the pilots.  After the Cuban Missile Crisis had passed, I flew one Saturday with a couple of Captains who were transporting a "Bird Colonel" to Cape Canaveral.  It was a small two engine L-23 with the door beside the co-pilot's seat.  Soon after becoming airborne, the door 'popped open'.  The co-pilot managed to hold it shut and the pilot received permission for emergency landing at the Atlanta airport.  The door was secured (or so it was thought).  Again, when we were once in the air, it reopened and we flew back to our airfield and switched to another aircraft.  I am uncertain about who was more frightened, the Colonel who from his rear seat actually lunged to catch the door or the lowly Private sitting next to him.

     Over the next couple of years, three friends died in crashes and my interest in flying cooled and many years elapsed before I again entered an airplane.  Within the past dozen or so years, I have flown cross-country a couple of times, many several regional jaunts, and flown once to Europe.  Still get a tad nervous when there is turbulence.  My wife alleviated much of that with her observation that those  who built the  plane took into account that it would encounter occasional turbulence.

     The hay-day of rail transportation has passed.  But were it not for time factors, fewer routes, and other  realities, trains would be my preferred mode of travel.  And I am yet to hear an airplane song that can match some of the poignant railroad songs.  For me, Leaving on a Jet Plane does not have the same tug as City of New Orleans, especially Arlo or Willie's versions.

    An advantage of accumulated birthdays is that I no longer have to remove my shoes when going
through airport security.  If you are 75 or more, the next time you fly, be sure to inform the TSA person of your special status.  My mother, who was not particularly fond of air travel, had her own coping explanation.  She said, "I don't put all my weight down."  It 'worked' for her and has become a kind of family mantra.  I recommend it.
 
     Satchel