A Walk With a Purpose

This year Vince and I have become involved with the 2020 Walk to End Alzheimer’s and are volunteering with the Marketing Committee.

It has been a strange year to be a volunteer. We can’t meet with others on the committee in person due to COVID-19. We can’t do all the marketing activities the organization has done in previous years like putting informational stickers on coffee cups and pizza boxes to garner interest in the 2020 Walk and in the mission of the Alzheimer’s Association.

So we have been doing a lot of virtual activities. We meet monthly over the phone and see each other on screen like a 2020 version of the Brady Bunch.

Our current strategy is to forge ahead with plans to hold the Columbus Walk to End Alzheimer’s at the Columbus Commons on Sunday, September 27^th.  There is also a virtual component to the walk, but we don’t yet know what that is going to look like.

Vince and I have also formed a team to walk – we are Team Forget Me Not. In honor of my mom. And in memory of all those who have succumbed to this disease.

Things change. And for all we know, the virtual walk will be all we can do because of coronavirus health concerns.

So we’ll take it day by day and week by week until it’s time to join together – either physically or virtually – to bring focus to Alzheimer’s. 

Research.

Programs.

Help.

I’ve read that Alzheimer’s affects one in four people. Certainly it has affected me and my family. My mother has been in a memory care unit for nearly four years, but has had the disease for over ten.

And while I would give anything to have my mother back the way she was pre-Alzheimer’s, I know that’s impossible.  

But what I can do is help raise awareness of the Alzheimer’s Association. And I can help raise funds for research to find a cure and to sponsor the programs the Alzheimer’s Association provides.

There are many worthwhile causes and many opportunities to give – so I don’t ask this lightly. But if you are in a position to help support our walk and cause, I would appreciate it more than you could ever know.

We would be honored to have you join our team, too, if you are willing and able.

Our link is: http://act.alz.org/goto/JaneandVinceCordova

And I thank you so very much!

The Old Green Leather Wallet

I was cleaning out some things today and I came across my mom’s old green leather wallet.

The wallet she has had for decades. The wallet that is falling apart at the seams. The wallet we tried many times to replace for her – only to have her stick with the old green one she already had.

She liked the smaller size of it. She liked that it didn’t have too many pockets and slots for credit cards. She liked that it had softened with age and she liked that she knew where the treasured photos of her husband and children and grandchild were.

 

She also knew which compartment held the ratty card on which she’d written the phone numbers and addresses of those important to her.

I hadn’t looked in the wallet since mom moved in to her memory care unit nearly four years ago. When she first arrived, she carried her purse. Mom never went anywhere without it and moving to a memory care unit was no different. While I knew she wouldn’t need a purse there, I didn’t try to dissuade her from bringing it.

But we looked inside her wallet so I could take her ID and health care cards and any other important information she carried. The only money mom had in the wallet was a $10 dollar bill, which she handed to me.

“Well, I guess I won’t be needing this anymore, she said. “Why don’t you keep it, Jane?”

I was already an emotional wreck having to bring mom to this place that I knew she’d never leave, so the act of handing over the last little bit of cash in her wallet almost did me in. I had to excuse myself for a moment to recapture a little composure.

When I rejoined her, she’d already forgotten about her purse, the green wallet and the ten dollar bill.

So when I came across her wallet in my purging frenzy today, it stopped me dead in my tracks. I hadn’t looked inside that wallet for ages.

I carefully opened it up and inside that old wallet were the parts of one’s life that seem mundane – until the person no longer has any use for them.

Inside her change compartment were, yes, a few coins – but she also carried some bobby pins for her hair. That compartment also held a religious medal – the same medal that mom gave me from time to time in moments of strife.

She meant to give me some peace by sending me that small token – but whenever I see those medals, I think of mom.  And while it brings a little sadness, it also does bring me a sense of comfort.

Also in the change purse was a small polished green stone. I suspect she picked it up on one of their many trips around the world. But I don’t think we’ll ever really know why that stone had such significance that mom kept it in her wallet.

I removed her frequent shopper cards for a grocery store and several pharmacies in Alliance.  

The card she always carried for the grocery store in Wareham had already been discarded. It could be that dad took it out of her wallet when they sold the cottage at the Cape knowing they’d never need that card again.

For some reason, she carried dad’s library card in her wallet, although perhaps they both used just one card when they borrowed from the library.

Or perhaps with the advancement of her dementia mom lost her library card and rather than replace it, they simply used dad’s card.  

But seeing dad’s signature on the back of the card brought me to tears. So many memories came flooding back.

I remember going to the library with them as a child and later visiting the bookmobile on my own whenever it came around my neighborhood. I’d check out as many books as I was allowed and then I’d struggle to carry them home careful not to drop any of my treasures.

I am incredibly happy that my parents instilled a love of reading in all their children – so much so that sometimes when we’d all gather together, we would quietly spend time together reading or doing crossword puzzles or jumbles.

Sometimes we’d all be so still, someone would invariably say, “Aren’t we a lively bunch?!”

But it was a comfortable silence broken only by someone commenting on an interesting passage or someone else asking for an answer to the clue in the crossword puzzle.

Nowadays, people can gather together and quietly spend time scrolling or texting or YouTubing or whatever it is they’re doing on their phones, but that togetherness doesn’t seem to have quite the same camaraderie.

In later years, I’d drive my parents to the small library in Wareham. Vacations at the Cape meant I got to catch up on lots of reading and I’d check out as many of the new best sellers as I could manage in the time I had there.

Dad went from reading regular books, to reading Large Print books and then later still when macular degeneration was winning the war against his eyesight, he’d borrow books on tape.

Mom, meanwhile, transitioned from historical novels and biographies to cookbooks where she could read snippets of dishes she’d most likely never prepare. But she always liked looking at cookbooks.

Toward the end of their visits to the library Dad would help her choose travel books where she could look at the photos and he’d help her try to recapture some memories of her time spent in those locales.

Finally, inside that old green wallet were photos of her husband and her children growing up. Our high school graduation photos were in there and tucked behind them were one or two of our grade school photos.  She also kept several photos of her granddaughter, Chloe, whom she adored.

There was a small black and white photo of dad taken in April of 1953 in Winnipeg. Dad was nattily dressed in a bow tie and an overcoat smiling as he sat on some steps in front of a vast pillar.

Shortly after they returned from their honeymoon, he had been given orders to report to an Air Force station in Winnipeg, the capital of the Canadian province of Manitoba. In later years mom and dad both recounted stories of that time, with her travelling by train to the remote station and staying with him in housing with no running water. 

It was a picture of dad that I don’t think I’d ever seen before. And it made me nostalgic for times that had passed and can never be recaptured again.

Much as that old green wallet captured snippets of mom’s life. She will never relive those times again, but in looking through her wallet, I got to experience some of those special moments in her life – and ours, too.

Oh, What a Night!

The other evening I took Maggie Minx for her 29^th walk of the day (this is only a slight exaggeration), and I happened to glance up at the sky. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I think I’ve ever seen in Westerville, Ohio.

I was barely able to snap a quick photo before our abnormally strong 10 pound dog dragged me on our way. If she’s out, she could care less about the pretty sunsets. She just wants to sniff and leave some pee mail for her fellow canines as if to say: “Maggie Was Here.”

Like most of the neighborhood doesn’t know that Maggie. Was. Here. She can be rather, uh, vociferous on occasion. No one would ever deem her the shy, retiring type.

Anyway, back to the sunset.

On the way back to the house, I managed to snap another shot and this one may have been even prettier.

 

Not only that, but I glanced in another direction – and I saw a faint rainbow. Which made me think of my dad.

After my dad fell and hit his head in June of 2016, I drove my mom to Canton to visit him after he had been admitted to the ICU. This was the beginning of a three week odyssey of ups and downs and progression and regression that ultimately ended with his death.

But that first night, he was awake and alert and we had hope even though he looked awful and we were so very worried about him.

On the drive back home to Alliance, there was an incredible double rainbow that lit up the sky. And we hoped that was a positive sign that dad would come out of this.

While it was not meant to be, I can never see a rainbow in the sky without thinking about my dad.

Just as sunsets and clouds make me think of my mom. 

One of the things I noticed once Alzheimer’s had a firm grip on my mother was her fascination with all manner of meteorological happenings.  She constantly commented on the color of the sky, particularly on those days when the sky was a vivid cerulean blue.  

And she obsessed about the shape and type of clouds, which had me scrambling through my memory banks of sixth grade science class trying to remember the difference between nimbus and cirrus clouds.  (When we couldn’t differentiate between them, I was able to consult Google. Gotta love the Google.)

Anyway, I suspect that by this point, Mom had lost her grasp on current events and recent memories, so she was able to contribute to the conversation by talking about the clouds.

There were moments I was sad listening to her talk about the sky – mostly because my mother had been an incredibly intelligent woman and she was never without an opinion on pretty much any topic.  But she could no longer track a conversation and didn’t really participate in our back and forth banter.

So now, whenever I do take a moment and look up at the sky, I think about my mom and her ruminations about the sky and the clouds.  

And I think to myself that maybe it’s not such a bad thing – to stop what we’re doing and look up at the sky and reflect on how beautiful and amazing our world is.

Guess mom can still teach me a thing or two, can’t she?

So…thanks, mom.  I miss seeing you due to this coronavirus thing. I hope we get to be with you soon.

And I miss you, too, dad. So much.

We Got This!

There are many things I’m frustrated/sad/ grumpy about right now with the COVID-19 pandemic – but there are many things I’m happy/grateful/ tickled about, too.

First off, I’m grateful that I’m not sick. Nor is anyone I care about - to my knowledge, anyway. Like the meme that states, that moment when you’re worried about the elderly and then you realize you are the elderly. Haha – right?

Not so much. Egad. How and when did I join the “elderly” category?

Suddenly, social distancing becomes way more important, doesn’t it? I really don’t want to come out the loser in the “who gets the ventilator” coin toss because of my age. So listening to the experts is critical. (And something I would have done even if I didn’t have to take my advanced years into consideration.)

I’m annoyed about things, too. Like, for instance, it annoys me that I’m still worried about flippin’ toilet paper, for cryin’ out loud. (Clearly, since my last blog was also about the scarcity of the ol’ bath tissue!)

But every time we use up another roll, I get a little jittery. Over the past two weeks, we’ve gone to the store maybe three times and there hasn’t been any toilet paper on the shelves even once.

I can’t think of any other staple in our household that causes me such consternation, but I truly think it’s my “Girl Scout” mentality that comes into play here of always being prepared.

If our supplies get too low, we may have to resort to looking at Youtube videos for DIY bidet installations.

I kid. Sorta. It depends on the Charmin’ situation in the next several weeks.

On a serious note, I am truly sad that I can’t visit my mom at her memory care unit right now. She is pretty far advanced in her Alzheimer’s and probably wouldn’t know if I have or have not visited her, so I suspect that any visits would benefit me more than her.

But I am incredibly grateful for the staff at The Glen because they have called so we can say “I love you” to mom. They have shared photos on FB or via texts so we can see her. And they are taking such good care of our loved ones that I am not sure how I can possibly ever say “thank you” enough.

They are most certainly tired. They have to go through a health check process just to walk in the door to get to work. And the uncertainty they face about potentially contracting the virus from some unsuspecting coworker who doesn’t show symptoms has to weigh heavily on their minds and hearts. Because they could then unknowingly bring the virus home to their shelter-in-place families.

It is the same for all front-line healthcare workers and first responders. I cannot imagine having the strength to do what they do. But I’m awfully grateful that they do it to benefit me and all my fellow citizens. (I was going to say “My Fellow

Americans” – but that still sounds a little too Nixon-ish for my taste.)

So while I miss going out to dinner and seeing a movie or heading to the gym for some much needed cardio, or running to the store to pick up, well, anything besides paper products and hand sanitizer – I think this time is a good “reset” for us to realize what is important in life. And that, although there will be some heartache or tough economic times for many of us ahead, we will weather the storm as we demonstrate the resilient nature we have.

And if we don’t have a resilient nature, we’re darn sure going to have to dig up some resiliency. After all, our forbearers made it through war and famine and all sorts of epidemics that we, with all our modern medicine and technology, can’t even imagine.

They even made do without the Charmin’ mega-rolls – or bidets.

So we got this!