A Day in the Life

Living life when you’re an 83 year old man taking care of a very disabled, but still cognizing 81 year old man is a challenge, to say the least. I try not to focus too much on our struggles; that’s just part of my general positive approach. However, sometimes we need to balance our presentation to the world.

Generally speaking, Stephen and Jym have got this down to a science. Stephen can walk very slowly once he’s on the walker, but he needs assistance when transferring to and from the walker—sink, chair, table or bed are the usual transfers. I manage all transfers, and three previous aides have failed to master them. He keeps having strokes, despite all the doctors and meds, and so we just adjust with each one.

Now that sounded grim, but we are far from unhappy here. We have our favorite TV shows and websites. Even though Stephen can’t use his computer anymore, by some miracle, he can still navigate the iPhone with a little help. He loves history and science, and the internet is full of online resources. I, of course, pound away at my Yamaha P-125 with its 88 keys and many voices. And we talk and get to the dining room still for dinner and conversation with other residents. He has an electric scooter, a “Jazzy 6.” We can get out on the residential patios here on nice days, but we haven’t figured out yet how to transport the Jazzy 6 elsewhere. Probably that’s just beyond my approaching mid-eighties fitness.

So we pass our days here. It’s a light and airy apartment, with great views. Mornings there is some kind of exercise and cleaning ritual. I shop online and can come up with a respectable breakfast/brunch. Afternoons are free except when various physical therapists and nurses come in. Naps are good most afternoons. Sometime there is a concert here in the afternoon. Dinner is usually edible and sometimes actually good. We are both news hounds, but also follow the public television programming and concerts on public radio.

But this one-day-at-a-time life is a fragile thing, and it doesn’t take much to disrupt it. One such disruption is the topic of today’s blog.

Realizations at the Return Counter

I have this pair of pants that has been a pain in the butt. I went to JCPenny at West County Mall a couple of years ago, because who can resist 60% off on all items? I was seduced by a pair of pants there. I tried them on, and I’ve never looked better in a pair of pants. The price was $27.98. So we went home together, my pants and me.

Charity in the Checkout Line

So I’m once again in line at Walgreens. I’ve got an arms and hands load of products, and I  have walked off and forgot my cloth shopping bags again. At the front of the line is a very tall thirty-something white guy with a nice build in shorts and a tee shirt. He’s buying some deodorant and a magazine. Behind him is a sixtyish African American woman, white hair, slightly bent over from the years, flowered house dress. She’s got a cart full of products. She’s talking to the cashier, Laverne, whom I’ve encountered before, also African American about fiftyish. You just know that Laverne has never met a stranger. She gives each person in turn her best service and an occasional flash of wit. Directly in front of me in line is a small, young, attractive woman with long blond hair in high heels, a handful of small products in her right hand and a clutch purse in the other. And the five of us are doing the commercial line dance with poise and patience.

It’s All in How You Look at It

It had been a busy work day at Apartment 438: two loads of laundry, preparing and cleaning up after two meals, a little housecleaning, considered off-limits by our regular housecleaner. I was tired. I’m learning to use this aging body more gently and caringly. But there was just this one thing left. A seven item shopping list. I could get it all at Schnucks, even the essential wine and corn patches. So I sat down for 10 minutes, thought “I can do this,” pulled myself together, grabbed three cloth shopping bags, and headed down to the parking garage.

Going Home at Christmas

by Jim Andris
12/24/78

I love going home at Christmas,
First there are hugs all around—
         Grandma’s bony ribs seem so small in my hands.
Sister pats my back,
         And brother tries to pick me up.
Mom always asks
         “How long do you get to stay this time?”
and
         “I’ll bet you’re hungry!”
So we sit and chat
over the TV;
         dad puts down his organic gardening book,
         and everyone looks at me
and smiles.
Someone passes around the cookiesandcandy
And eventually
I go look under the Christmas tree
And try to guess
What’s in the blue box with the yellow ribbon.
The porch—scuffle, door pound.
Child voices and laughter
We are invaded
by my two nephews.
Conversations break out
in three different corners of the room
and the laughter
always the Holiday laughter
orange candle flames add glow to the
blinking neon tree ball reflections
We catch up on a hundred details:
the baby’s due in March
Gladys was in the hospital
Jeffry can play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
while Joey pounds the bottom keys
and squeals.
And after a while things
quiet down.
The Smith crew departs
like a three-sectioned wagon.
Grandma gets tired and slowly climbs the stairs
bent over—
         how strange—nearly
like a fetus.
Dad goes back to his balancing act
between the book on his lap and Police Woman,
and eventually drifts off to
half-lidded dozing.
Tom and Dee pack up their gear
and leave—
Tom has run out of jokes.
Mom finishes her crossword puzzle
and she and dad go to bed.
I just sit there
with the poinsettias and potted palms
and African violets
and remember
everything that happened that evening.
The Christmas lights
illuminate
a tear-streak
on my cheek.
I pull the plug,
go upstairs,
get undressed,
and pull the covers to my chin against the chill of the night.
“Five days will go so fast,” I think
as I doze off to sleep.

Riding the Train in Sedalia: It Takes all Kinds

(This is in a series of posts about my trip to Sedalia, Missouri May 31-June 2, 2018)

My most fascinating yet challenging experience in Sedalia had nothing to do with the ragtime festival. Even though I had had a spectacular time on my own, the two days in town had flown by quickly, and I found myself getting off the bus a block away from an Amtrak terminal near downtown an hour early.

I felt a bit intimidated. There was no one in the station, no agent, no passengers. The train just slows down and stops very briefly to drop off or pick up passengers, and then it is gone. I thought of a line from the poem I had memorized in high school, Ozymandias:

“Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Riding the Bus in Sedalia: a Window into a Community

(This is in a series of posts about my trip to Sedalia, Missouri May 31-June 2, 2018)

I knew I would enjoy all the ragtime virtuosity that is almost continuously on display at the International Scott Joplin Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, but an unexpected adventure unfolded for me on Sedalia streets. It all went back to my decision to take a train ride. Stephen and I moved to Kirkwood, Missouri in April of 2017. The downtown area of Kirkwood, which includes an Amtrak depot, is less than half a mile from our home, and so I found myself walking there often. One day, quite unexpectedly, the idea popped into my head: Before I die, I want to take the Amtrak train from Kirkwood to Sedalia for the annual ragtime festival held there in late May.

On Disconnect

Sometimes things seem to be upside down

Sometimes, things can just really be complicated. I had returned from shopping the other day, and was parking in the handicapped spot in front of our yellow brick 1895 townhouse in Fox Park. I noticed a guy distributing political doorknob hangers on my block, just starting on the other side of the street. I was listening to one of the hourly news briefs on public radio, and so I just kept watching him. Nice looking black man dressed well, but casually in slacks and a sweatshirt, modest colors. Maybe he’s in his fifties. Now he’s crossing the street and going straight past me and up the steps to my place. Stephen is home. He rings the doorbell, which is a video system. Stephen is not answering. He comes back down the steps after a while, just as I am exiting the car and gathering the groceries.

Un encuentro en las tiendas, Take Three*

I’m pulling up to the Schnuck’s at Grand and Gravois once again around noon on a beautiful August day. My feelings are divided about this, because recently Mike made me aware that Schnuck’s replaced all the union workers at their Bridgeton warehouse with nonunion workers. I have been seriously weighing this issue. But today, here I am on South Grand already right by this familiar shopping place, and I only have three items on my list. I know right where they are here, and the place is nearly always a learning experience.