Joy (a haiku)

It Seems Like Just Yesterday...

When one hears the phrase “It seems like just yesterday that I…”, what completes the sentence brings one directly up against the realization that each life is hastening on to its appointed end and for most that plays out in the perception of days running into each other, going by faster and faster with no hope of any slowing.  For me that would have sounded something like this: 

It seems like just yesterday I was playing in the desert with my sister and brother chasing horned toads and raking magnets through the sand to collect iron filings.

It seems like just yesterday I was graduating from high school—followed by It seems like just yesterday I was graduating from college.

It seems like just yesterday I got engaged for the second time (the first was a huge mistake.)

It seems like just yesterday I was touring the Thousand Islands on my honeymoon.

It seems like just yesterday we bought our first car, Plymouth Gold Duster.  (Loved that car.)

It seems like just yesterday I was 7 months pregnant with our second child and moving into our first house with the help of my parents.

It seems like just yesterday we bought a 1952 Packard.  (Loved that car too.)

It seems like just yesterday our daughter was having her first open heart surgery—or her second.  (Both successful.)

It seems like just yesterday our oldest daughter married and moved to Florida—or our oldest son married and moved to Iowa—or our youngest son married and moved to Minnesota.

It seems like just yesterday we started Knerr Heating, A/C and Refrigeration.  (And now it’s almost the end.)

It seems like just yesterday that we moved my parents from California to Pennsylvania to live with us.

It seems like just yesterday my mother passed away from a hemorrhagic stroke after suffering from Alzheimers.

It seems like just yesterday we were building our house in Kennedy’s Valley while living in the basement.

It seems like just yesterday I heard my first screech owl in the middle of the night and thought someone was being murdered out in the woods.  (Not true, just sounded like it.)

It seems like just yesterday we had a very noisy bear raid our bird feeders after a dry summer and fall.  (Also in the middle of the night.)

It seems like just yesterday my Dad was diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia.

It seems like just yesterday my dad passed away from the effects of the dementia, 65 years to the day after he was discharged from a military hospital and given 6 months to live.

It seems like just yesterday Carrie and I did a road trip to South Carolina or Florida or Canada.

It seems like just yesterday I was canning tomatoes and tomato sauce in my new pressure canner—oh wait, that was just the day before yesterday.

For most of my adult life the phrases “It seems like just yesterday..” or “How time flies” were part and parcel of my existence.  Living in the moment seemed an impossibility.  Four children, a house, animals, a business (or 2 or 3) conspired to keep life very busy and very full. Though never one to keep a written to-do list or journal or date book, I carried a mental list of current and future to-do’s in my head which propelled me forward through time faster and faster and faster. 

Caring for a parent with Lewy Body dementia as the primary caregiver changed all that.  If I had still had children at home or a job outside the home the effects might have been muted.  And my experience may be an anomaly.  I have no one else’s experience with which to compare mine.  The day to day and moment to moment care of my dad especially during the latter stages became, without thought or intent, an exercise in “being in the moment”.  Unlike Alzheimers, in Lewy Body dementia there is little of the past.  For my dad, hints of past memories mingled with fiction read or seen on TV.  Hallucinations of tiny little men marching through the glow of the night light or fixation on the enemy’s plot to kidnap his “girlfriend” from the building where he went to day care once a week or the paranoia that brought feelings of everyone hating him became much of his reality.  When engaged in physical activity such as making his bed, or sweeping the deck, the hallucinations and paranoia would recede for a while, but were never far away.  The future was an uncertain timeline without hope for a cure or a return to normalcy.  The end stage of Lewy Body can come suddenly and end quickly as was the case for him.  And without the past or the future, there was only the present.  A present vigilance against harm.  A present vigilance to meet physical needs.  A present vigilance to provide emotional support however futile it may have seemed at the time.  A present vigilance to be a loving family of which he was a part, even when there was little recognition by him of that fact. 

In living those days, weeks and months moment by moment, the inexorable hurriedness of time fell away.  A new habit was formed that remains.  Each day is a new day of 24 hours, neither longer nor shorter, in thought as well as reality.  Yes, there are memories to tie me to the past and yes, there are thoughts of what is ahead, of appointments to keep, of phone calls to be made, of birthdays and weddings, of family and friends aging, of seasons to prepare for and enjoy, but through it all is the measured beat of the clock ticking moment by measured moment, not racing, not hurrying, just being.  And that is a wonderful gift.