Feedback, Please

Dear Readers:

I’m at the very beginning process of putting together my book proposal for Pulling Taffy. And I’m writing to ask for your help.

At the moment I picture the book as reprinting my blog posts about life with my mother, perhaps with each month of last year coming to represent a chapter of the book.

In between the blog-post chapters, I’d like to write material that will enrich and cast light on those posts.

Certainly, I should have some scientific and statistical data about dementia patients and their caregivers. I don’t want to compete with the excellent books on this subject; I can’t. Nevertheless, I would like to include some of this background information for readers who are unfamiliar with it.

What else would you, who have read the blog, like to read? What would enhance this story for you?

Biographical background about Taffy? Photos from earlier in her life? More details about the trajectory of her disease?

I am absolutely open to suggestion. Please leave a comment below to let me know.

And if you’d like to read more about what I’m up to, please follow my brand-new blog, What’s a Girl to Do?

As you can tell from the title, I’ll be looking for suggestions there, too.

In the meantime, I’d like to announce that someone new will be joining my little family. I can’t replace my mother. I can’t even replace my dear cat Lorelei Lee, who died just a few days after my mother.

I can get a new kitten … not a replacement, just an addition.

We don’t know her name yet, but she will be old enough to come live with my dog and me on February 23.

Meanwhile, happy Valentine’s Day to you all. I wish you joy and just a little puppy (or kitty) love………..

Tinky

"She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother."

A Joyful Memorial Service

A joyful Taffy with her grandson Michael at Colonia Williamsburg a couple of years ago

I have to start this post with an apology. My camera was with me throughout my mother’s memorial service and the festivities after it. Unfortunately, I got to talking with people (something I am prone to do!), and the camera stayed in my purse! I do have a few of the photos of Taffy that were displayed at the service, and I’ll use those for illustrations.

Just over two weeks ago, on January 7, we bade our formal goodbye to Taffy. “Formal” may not be the appropriate word. Although the goodbye was official, it was far from stodgy. “Joy” was the word most often used in the hymns we selected. The word suited a person who embodied it almost every day.

To keep the service reasonably short and reasonably light my brother and I decided to limit the number of speakers.

Our minister, Cara Hochhalter, said a few gentle prayers and talked about Taffy’s life in general—her education, her work as a teacher and antique dealer, her love of the theater and acting (her favorite role was Kate in The Taming of the Shrew), the confidence she took from her family background, and above all her feeling for color.

“I recall seeing pink socks, red tennis shoes,” Cara said with a smile, “and that lovely jaunty straw hat with the bright yellow sunflower.” She went on to read a poem Taffy wrote titled “India,” a piece of verse awash with the colors its writer loved.

After Cara my Uncle Bruce charmed the congregation as he has charmed people as long as I can remember. My mother wasn’t the only theatrical person in the family.

He shared a few stories about their youth and early adulthood. Two and a half years younger than my mother, Bruce was her first and most constant playmate. He recalled waiting breathlessly for Santa with his big sister. He also remembered his awe at her command of Shakespeare and his warm feelings toward both her and my father when Jan Hallett decided to marry Abe Weisblat. Most of all, he displayed his own wisdom and whimsy, characteristics he shared with his sister.

Left to right: Taffy with siblings Bruce and Lura in 2008

Finally, our neighbor Alice Parker Pyle recalled summers spent with Taffy and the entire Weisblat clan at Singing Brook Farm—summers of children’s games and cooking and stories and music and OF COURSE poetry recitation. Like Cara, she also touched briefly on the last few months of Taffy’s life. Alice was a loyal visitor at the end, one who never failed to make Taffy smile.

Taffy loved music so of course the service featured songs. The church choir sang “Brother James’ Air,” a jewel-like setting of the 23rd Psalm. We all loudly and happily raised our voices in “Joy to the World,” Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” and “This Little Light of Mine.” And I sang the verses to “In the Garden” and invited everyone to join in on the chorus.

“In the Garden” is disappearing from hymnals. It was a favorite of my grandparents, newlyweds in 1912 when it was composed by C. Austin Miles. Taffy often requested it at hymn sings; I think it reminded her of her childhood in what seemed a simpler time.

It comes across as old fashioned today, but we certainly had a blast singing it. I invite readers to join in the chorus on the video (well, really just a soundtrack with a still photo—but WHAT a still photo!) below.

Believe me, the song will sound LONG if you don’t sing along. My voice is still a little hoarse from a recent cold so I’m not at my best vocally, and I’m still working on recording technology.

Here are the lyrics:

And he walks with me, and he talks with me,
And he tells me I am his own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.

After the service the church’s pastoral-care committee put on a lavish spread. We sipped and munched and caught up with our guests—Uncle Bruce and three of his children, Aunt Lura and two of hers (plus two grandchildren), honorary relatives, old friends, new friends, and neighbors. A few tears were shed, but the day was also one of laughter.

Taffy with a friend, 1968

If you’d like to read about what we ate that day, visit my food blog, in which I muse about funereal comfort food.

We plan a huge memorial party in six months or so—a time of more food, more song (I am working on a list of songs Taffy loved!), and lots of memories. Not to mention a few cocktails!

On that occasion we will open the floor to anyone who wants to tell a story.

By summer people will be less sad about Taffy’s death, more inclined to laugh and sing and rejoice. Someone will surely recite the poem she started reciting at the age of five and still loved in her last months, “The Owl and the Pussycat.”

Meanwhile, my brother and I feel that we have done Taffy proud.

When someone dies the strangest part—to me, at any rate–is how “not there” he or she suddenly is. Where once there was color we are left with black and white. Where once there was a voice we are left with silence.

Memories fill in the spare lines and make the voice audible once again. And fellowship reminds us that we are never alone.

I’ll be back soon with some questions for readers about this project. For now I leave you with the poem Cara read at the service on January 7.

India
by Jan Weisblat

India is an artist’s palette,
Strong primary colors against a base of brown.
 Brown women in red and gold saris,
Yellow wheat fields waving in the sun,
Emerald tanks below the white-washed village huts
And the tender green of new rice.
 Yellow corn lies drying on red roofs in Kulu.
Browns mingle with gray and gold in the Rajasthani desert.
The bright orange-red of the gulmoher—the flame tree—heralds the spring in Bombay,
And the roof of the world stands white and purple in the North.
 The dhobi spreads his wash of white, yellow, blue and red
On the dull green banks of the river,
And little brown children swim naked in the green waters of a pond
With their black water buffalo.
India is grey-blue crows in the garden
Shouting a raucous keep-away to other birds,
And sassy black robins flicking red-bellied tails.
 The myna birds gather in chattering groups,
Yellow beaks, brown bodies and white tails in flight,
And a tiny green bee-eater sits on my telephone wire.
India is gold sun overhead,
Blue skies in winter,
Yellow skies, heavy with dust, in April and May,
And dark grey monsoon skies
Ready to replenish the parched earth.

Looking Back

And then there were two .... Truffle looks uncomfortable here, but I looked awful in the other shot we took so I chose this one! She gets to look adorable all the time, after all.

When I began working on this blog almost a year ago I chose the calendar year as an arbitrary time frame for writing about my mother, her dementia, and our life together.

This format had worked for Peter Mayle in A Year in Provence. I figured it might work for me.

I had no idea that fate was planning to provide closure for us with my mother’s death at the end of the year. A few days after my mother passed away, as if to reinforce the truth that my life and my story were changing, I had to say goodbye to our cat, Lorelei Lee.

Both died quietly and gently after long, happy lives. Both died surrounded by love. A girl can get a little sick of the words “It was very peaceful.” There are worse ways to die, however, and worse ways to lose loved ones.

A few days ago I sat down to read all 65 posts (so far) of Pulling Taffy. I hope I’ll manage to transform this blog into a book in the coming months. Meanwhile, looking and reading back, I am pleased with what it helped me accomplish this year.

It enabled me to cope—more than cope—with my mother’s illness. The first few posts seemed to dwell an awful lot on the difficulties of taking care of her. As the year went on, however, I became more attuned to the pluses of caregiving and less upset by the minuses. Tears of frustration turned into tears of tenderness.

I began by writing about what I was losing. Somewhere along the line I started writing about what I was finding. In short, a burden was transformed into a privilege.

I recently read the blog Momma and Me. Its author, Arlene, lives in Texas and takes care of her mother, who has Lewy Body Dementia. Arlene isn’t a professional writer, but her words about her mother shine with love.

In her very first post, written in March 2011, Arlene wrote about having to install locks and an alarm on her door in an attempt to keep her Momma from wandering off. “I’m locking the door, but not my heart,” she wrote.

Arlene knew right away what it has taken me a year—actually a lifetime—to learn. My resolution for 2012 is that I will never lock my heart.

In addition to teaching me about love and caregiving, Pulling Taffy has made friends for me. It has also enabled friends and relatives I haven’t been able to see much to reach out to me. I thank you, my readers, for this gift.

Miraculously, in writing this blog I have become a better writer, a better daughter, and (I hope) a better person.

I’m not sure what the year 2012 holds for my little dog and me. The days since my mother’s death have been full of activity and affection. Concerned with my newly orphaned status, my friends and family have showered me with cards, emails, gifts, food, phone calls, favors, memories, and good times.

Christmas was a magical day of family and feasting. My tiny tree (obtained and decorated with my nephew Michael on Christmas Eve) gleams in my sun room. Almost every ornament in the collection I inherited from Taffy represents a happy time we had together. My family has recalled my father this season as well, both in stories and in lighting the Chanukkah menorah.

I know that things will quiet down and that I will have more sad moments. Our poor little dog Truffle is frequently sad these days, staying as close as she can to the family she has left. I know that she and I will survive these moments with humor, music, friendship, long walks, and lots of belly rubs. (The last two are officially for Truffle but will probably help me as well.)

As I look ahead I believe that the best way to honor my mother’s memory and to keep myself stable is to emulate her and be as useful as I can be. And above all to cultivate the joy she felt almost every day. I don’t have her smile, but I’ll make good use of my own.

I’ll be back in touch with a report on her memorial service on January 7. And I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on with me as I refine this project and work on new ones.

Meanwhile, I wish joy and peace to all my readers in the New Year. Thank you for sharing Taffy’s journey and mine.

My Peachy Little Mother

Moral Superiority

I don't have a recent photo of Taffy exerting her moral superiority so here's one from a few years back.

I had written this brief essay just before my mother’s final illness so I thought I should go ahead and post it. I have changed the tenses to reflect her recent death…….

Taffy was always short, although toward the end of her life she reached an adult low. She ended up about 55 or 56 inches tall. In her prime she got up to 61 and a half inches. This may seem short to some of my readers, but I’m still hoping for a little growth spurt to get me that far!

When my brother grew taller than she was (it didn’t take him very long) Taffy looked him in the eye and informed him that she still had “moral superiority.” This amorphous term was supposed to mean that he should bow down before her golden character and do her bidding.

In practical terms, it meant that he should do her bidding because her character was extraordinarily forceful. She called herself “strong willed.” When the young Tinky exhibited similar characteristics I was told that I was “stubborn.” I agree that “strong willed” sounds a lot better.

Taffy had inherited many things from her father—her soft brown hair, her square build, her love of literature. Perhaps the most obvious characteristic he bequeathed her was his legendary (and sometimes a little scary) dead certainty that whatever he said or believed was right.

Having read Oliver Wendell Holmes, my mother called her father “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” He always reminded me of Clarence Day Sr. in the book, play, and film Life with Father, a beloved tyrant.

From my grandfather Taffy absorbed her way of looking a person squarely in the eye and insisting that her opinion equaled the truth no matter what. She was seldom amenable to argument.

Toward the end of her life she retained little energy to assert her opinions and her character. Her method of argument was simply to close her eyes and her mouth and act as though the person who wanted to convince her of something (or, often, who wanted to feed her a pill) didn’t exist.

This tactic could be frustrating. On the other hand, we caregivers all realized that it was precisely my mother’s strength of character that kept her going long after her body grew weak.

So we respected her moments of “moral superiority” and bided our time until her eyes and mouth opened again. They could seldom remain shut for long. She was too interested in the sights and tastes around her.

I’ll be back next week with a reflection on my year of living with and writing about Taffy. Meanwhile, thank you so much to all of you who have called, emailed, and left comments about my mother’s death. I hope to respond personally to each of you very soon. Happy holidays to all…….

I’ll Fly Away

Truffle is a little bewildered.

Taffy died a little after 9:30 on Sunday night. Jennifer, one of her dear aides, was by her side. I had left for a couple of minutes to write an email. My little mother was sleeping peacefully and just stopped breathing.

We had a weekend surrounded by family and friends who gave both of us comfort. Sunday was a little tricky for Taffy. For much of the day she seemed to be struggling to speak, to train her brain on some important matter, to make her body do what it could no longer do. Eventually, she grew calm and drifted off.

Our faithful dog Truffle lay quietly by Taffy’s side for many hours that day, sensing that climbing up on her and kissing her was no longer feasible.

Just after Taffy died I brought Truffle in to say goodbye. She no longer wanted to jump onto the bed, apparently knowing that the body lying there no longer held her mother.

Originally my dog, Truffle became more and more my mother’s pet in the past couple of years, a bond I welcomed for both their sakes. Yesterday she was a little bewildered but soon established herself as mine once more, sticking close to me and to the cat.

Taffy gave me many gifts over the years. Unwittingly she shared one last gift. About a month ago I used her money to purchase a red flannel nightgown. She was beyond shopping, but I was sure she would want to give me a Christmas present.

When she became bedridden the hospice aides suggested that a nightgown would be easier to maneuver in the bed than her usual pajamas. Unfortunately, Taffy had no cold-weather nighties.

I went upstairs and took the red flannel gown out of its wrappings. She was wearing it when she died. I’ll think of her and her generosity of spirit every time I put it on.

I have been flooded with phone calls and messages, and I hope to respond to them all eventually. I will write again here next week. Meanwhile, here is the obituary we sent to newspapers……

Thank you all for reading!

Our darling friend Judy Christian took this photo of a smiling Taffy about three years ago.

Jan Weisblat

Jan Hallett Weisblat, 93, of Hawley, Massachusetts, and Alexandria, Virginia, died at her home in Massachusetts on Sunday, December 11. She also considered Millburn, New Jersey, her home; she lived there from 1972 to 2010.

Janice Hallett was born on September 26, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, the child of Erwin Bruce Hallett and Clara Engel Hallett. Her family moved to New Jersey when she was very small. She spent most of her life dividing her time between New Jersey and New England, with forays overseas.

She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1939 with a major in French and studied education at the Bank Street School. She later received a master’s degree in French from Seton Hall University. She taught elementary school, secondary school, and even college over the years. She loved teaching, learning, and young people.

After saying yes to numerous proposals but never accepting a ring from any of the young men involved, Jan Hallett took a ring from Abe Weisblat, whom she met while both were teaching at Stevens Hoboken Academy in Hoboken, New Jersey.

The bride was Christian and the groom Jewish so their parents asked them to remain engaged for at least a year before marrying in order to be sure that the “mixed” marriage would take. It took and lasted from 1945 until Abe Weisblat’s death in 1998.

Over the course of their marriage the pair lived in India, the Philippines, and Great Britain as well as the United States. Jan Weisblat had special love for India and France. She wrote a book of poems called “My India” and was frequently taken for French by native speakers of that language.

In 1958 her family first visited Singing Brook Farm in Hawley, Massachusetts. The Weisblats spent every summer at the Farm from then on, eventually building a year-round house in Hawley. Abe Weisblat called it “Ashram West.” His wife called it home.

She loved history and old things. In the 1970s she and her friend Claire Roth started an antique shop in Charlemont, Massachusetts, the Charlemont House Gallery. When her partner retired, Weisblat moved the shop to nearby Shelburne Falls and christened it the Merry Lion in honor of her alma mater’s founder, Mary Lyon.

She ran her store with the help of the late folk artist Judith Russell, who often painted the view of the Bridge of Flowers out the shop window. The Merry Lion specialized in Staffordshire plates, pressed glass, and whimsy. Its proprietress retired in 2001 to enjoy being a grandmother (at last!).

An avid amateur thespian, she loved to recite poetry, particularly nonsense verse like “The Owl and the Pussycat” and “The Pobble Who Has No Toes.” She was a loyal friend and wife, a demanding but loving mother, and a generous no-fuss hostess. Bright and funny, she loved crossword puzzles, singing, and good conversation.

Decades after her graduation from Mount Holyoke a professor was asked whether he recalled Janice Hallett. “Short and full of life!” he responded, providing her epitaph.

She is survived by her two siblings, Bruce Hallett of Manchester Center, Vermont, and Lura Hallett Smith of Southbury, Connecticut. She also left a son, David Weisblat, of Alexandria, Virginia, along with his wife Leigh, and their son Michael; a daughter, Tinky Weisblat, of Hawley, Massachusetts; and numerous nieces and nephews.

A brief memorial service will be held at the Federated Church in Charlemont, Massachusetts, on Saturday, January 7, at 1 pm. A larger celebration is being planned for the spring.

The Sun Countess

Jackie and Sarah from Hospice with Taffy and the Inevitable Truffle

Feminists have long maintained that the separation between public and private (like that between the personal and the political) is basically specious.

My mother was a little older than most of the postwar feminist generation and never called herself a feminist per se. Nevertheless, she has always lived her life in certainty of the rights and worth of her fellow women.

And she has always viewed public and private behavior as interchangeable. She has lived her life as though every private choice were visible to everyone and every public issue affected her family.

She taught me by example to do the same, although I don’t always succeed as well as she.

In light of her views on the public/private “split,” I think that if she didn’t suffer from dementia Taffy would be pleased with the course of her illness in recent months. And she would be pleased with the way in which she is dying.

She IS dying at this point, I am sad to report. She caught a cold last weekend. The resultant fever has made her weaker and less responsive each day. She barely sips a little broth for nourishment. And she is now completely bedridden.

We tried moving her to the living room to sit up yesterday, but she was so stiff and weak that we decided not to try taking her out of her bed again unless she gets better, which seems unlikely.

Despite being in bed and being minimally conscious, she still receives her public. She’s not quite the Sun King, Louis XIV, who was rumored to have 100 courtiers in attendance each morning when he arose and dressed.

I’m dubbing her the Sun Countess, with enough attendants and visitors to evoke an occasional smile and to keep her comfortable.

Hospice sends nurses and aides. We have our faithful helpers Pam and Jen. My brother is around (she always seems to respond a little to his touch). And friends and neighbors call and stop by to say hello.

I’m proud that in recent months we have taken her out into the sunshine and the larger world as often as we could. And I’m happy that that world is wishing her well as her journey nears its end. Every life and every death need to be public as well as private.

Louis XIV. He didn't have Truffle so he had to settle for a horse.

A Bountiful Thanksgiving, Part the Second

A happy but sleepy Taffy says goodnight to her firstborn.

I was so busy musing last week about home and Thanksgiving that I forgot to report in on Taffy’s literal (as opposed to figurative!) Thanksgiving … and on her progress these days.

My brother David, his wife Leigh, and their son Michael flew up from Virginia for the holiday weekend. I wouldn’t say that my mother could have named them if you had asked her who they were. She was obviously happy to be with them, however.

For the previous couple of weeks she had been sleeping more and more. Even when awake she had kept her eyes closed much of the time, which made getting food into her difficult.

Suddenly on Thanksgiving morning she was alert—watching the Thanksgiving Day parade and keeping an eye on the family. She didn’t eat a lot of dinner, but she sat at the table with us all and smiled from time to time.

By Friday she was actually beginning to eat … and she has been eating turkey leftovers ever since. I hope this trend will continue tonight with some other kind of food; we are now officially out of turkey! Happily, we still have pumpkin pie and rustic apple tart.

Taffy didn’t converse with the family much over the weekend, but she loved the hugs and comfort David and the gang offered.

When they left on Sunday, she was tired … but the small renaissance begun by their visit has persisted.

Yesterday Taffy was extremely perky. She chatted and laughed. She ate well. She even took a small walk with her walker. (She has been pretty much wheelchair bound for a while.)

Today she is a little more somnolent but by and large still radiates hunger and happiness from time to time. “We have a sassy Taffy today,” her caregiver Pam said at lunch.

The hospice social worker visited and warned me that this upward trend may not continue. In fact, she explained, weak people often have a spike of good health before their final decline.

I’m an optimist. I won’t exactly ignore the social worker. She may be right.

I’m hopeful, however. And I’m thankful for any good days Taffy has. It’s nice to see her personality shine again for a bit.

Leigh, David, and Michael with Taffy (and of course Truffle, who NEVER misses Thanksgiving dinner!)

A Bountiful Thanksgiving

Lillian Gish and Eva Marie Saint in the 1953 television version of "The Trip to Bountiful"

Thanksgiving is a holiday that speaks of home to most Americans. Of course, it also speaks of turkey and cranberry sauce and whatever our family traditions require at the table, from lasagna to green-bean casserole. But at its heart this holiday is all about home and family.

As regular readers know, I’ve been thinking a lot this year about the meaning of home. Until recently the word “home” came up every day … sometimes MULTIPLE times per day … in conversation with my 93-year-old mother.

Like most dementia patients, she pleaded to go home, particularly in the afternoon when the landscape outside darkened.

Taffy’s longing for home has often reminded me of Horton Foote’s play The Trip to Bountiful. Its elderly heroine, Carrie Watts, leads a lonely existence in the house of her uncaring son and daughter-in-law. She longs to return to her childhood home in the now dilapidated town of Bountiful, Texas. To Carrie, Bountiful—I love that name!—represents youth, peace, joy, and love.

We all have our own idealized Bountifuls. I’m lucky that mine is the landscape near my current house in Hawley, Massachusetts. To my late father Bountiful wasn’t a physical place. The people he loved constituted his spiritual home.

Years ago my mother told me that her Bountiful was her grandparents’ farm in Rutland, Vermont. Her family spent every summer there in her youth.

In her memory Taffy frequently revisited the long, sunny days there, days in which she and her brother wandered the fields, played with friends, or lay on the grass watching clouds pass by. Whatever the real weather may have been, those days were invariably sunny in her recollection.

Lately when Taffy spoke of going home the meaning of the word seemed to shift. Occasionally she was talking about a real house in which she lived as a child with her parents, for she is often a little girl now. As I’ve written before, I think that home was and is also—and mainly—an archetype to her.

Like Bountiful to Carrie Watts, home to my mother means a figurative place in which she is free of people who don’t understand her, free of a body that can no longer do what she asks of it, free of the confusion that besets her mind.

Home may, in fact, mean death to Taffy.

In the last couple of weeks she has asked to go home less frequently. She is weak physically and is getting weaker mentally as well. Wanting to go home takes focus and effort that she doesn’t always have anymore. Part of me is relieved: I hated seeing her distressed when she begged to go home. Part of me worries about what comes next.

Every few days she still manages to bleat out a request to go home. When she does I remind her that home is a place in which one is loved.

So, I explain, like Dorothy in the film version of The Wizard of Oz, she hasn’t ever really left home at all.

This explanation generally calms her down. “I am home,” she tells me. And we hold hands and smile at each other.

Now, that’s something to be thankful for.

Tinky and Taffy, Thanksgiving 2008.

Fate Keeps on Happening

The Original Lorelei Lee, as drawn by illustrator Ralph Barton. Courtesy of the Morgan Library

The phrase “fate keeps on happening” comes from the fertile pen of one of my favorite authors.

Anita Loos (1888-1981) wrote novels, memoirs, and screenplays. Her masterpiece, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), was dubbed “the Great American Novel (at last!)” by Edith Wharton in a postcard housed at the Morgan Library (which is lucky enough to have the manuscript of GPB as well). Wharton, as they say, knew from novels.

I like the book and its author so much that I named my cat after the blonde whom the novel’s gentlemen prefer, Lorelei Lee. Both Loreleis have a habit of using their big blue eyes to entrap less beautiful beings into giving them what they want.

In the case of the feline Lorelei the goal is usually food, preferably chicken. The fictitious Lorelei has internalized the materialism of America in the 1920s and therefore goes for the gold, literally.

“[K]issing your hand may make you feel very, very good,” she decides, “but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever.”

I don’t take all of the original Lorelei Lee’s sayings to heart. If I did, I would be richer and more cosmopolitan. Nevertheless, to me, as to her, fate tends to keep on happening.

I try to plan my life from time to time, but in the end that life seems to follow a course laid out for it by la forza del destino or the fickle finger of fate or SOMETHING.

I gather there are people who can shape and control the trajectory of their lives. I don’t happen to be one of those people.

I was reminded of this character quirk recently when I read Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words by Kate Whouley. Subtitled “Travels with Mom in the Land of Dementia,” this book tells the story of the author’s struggles to deal with her late mother’s Alzheimer’s disease.

Mothers and daughters have different relationships. Kate Whouley’s bond with her own mother was more conflicted than mine with Taffy. One of the joys of her book is the way in which Whouley seems to resolve their differences as the two women let go of memory and learn to live in the present.

As a writer and as a daughter I was moved by the way in which Whouley writes about her mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and her own acceptance of responsibility for her mother’s care. In fact, she explains, she divides their joint experience as adults into “before” and “after”—that is, before and after the diagnosis.

My mother’s diagnosis, like much of our life together, was less clear cut.

Looking back, my brother David and I agree that she must have had some cognitive impairment in 1998, the year in which my father died.

At the time she seemed her usual sharp self. But … she applied for long-term-care insurance that year and was denied coverage because she failed to pass a brief memory test. She told us that she was distracted during the test, and we believed her.

Taffy had never failed a test in her life, and her memory had always been one of her strengths. One believes what one wants to believe, however.

As the years went by we noted little slips. Taffy repeated the same question over and over again. Formerly fiercely independent, she no longer liked to be alone for long. A reader since early childhood, she had trouble finishing books.

By the time she was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease this past spring by a neurologist, Taffy had been on Alzheimer’s medications for several years. And just about everyone knew that she had dementia.

Nevertheless, we never had an “aha” moment, a point at which we said to ourselves that she was suffering from dementia. It dawned on us little by little.

My role as caregiver was similar. I never actually chose to take care of my mother. It just happened.

I stayed in her house in New Jersey for a couple of years (2000-2002) when I had one of my few-ever formal jobs, at the Museum of Television & Radio (now called the Paley Center for Media) in New York.

When I quit the job to have more time for my writing, she seemed to need more and more company. Gradually, we grew into living together. And gradually I discovered her increasing limits.

First she needed help driving. Later she lost the capacity to cook simple meals for herself or even eat a sandwich left out for her. Eventually, I realized she couldn’t pay her bills or be left for any significant period of time. And so on.

It often seemed as though our world was getting smaller and smaller and smaller. At times this sensation of things closing in frustrated me. I remember a rough Sunday morning a little over a year ago. (Since I’m not a morning person mornings are often my roughest times. It’s not darkest only just before the dawn. Just after the dawn can stymie me, too.)

After struggling to get us both dressed and ready for church, I arrived for choir rehearsal with Taffy in tow, short on time and shorter on patience. Our minister, Cara, asked if she could help in any way since I was obviously upset. “Get me my life back!” I cried. It was not one of my finer moments, and I’m sure it worried poor Cara.

Over time, however, moments like that have receded. A number of factors account for this relaxation of tension. First, I have help and support with Taffy–from professional caregivers, from friends and neighbors, from family members. (I never hesitate to ask for help!)

Second, although I blush to admit it, it helps that Taffy sleeps later in the morning most of the time now so we generally avoid my worst time of day. Writing this blog has also helped me put our life together–its downs and its ups–into perspective.

Above all, things are better because, despite Taffy’s weakening condition, we have both moved through the frustration to find new strength in ourselves–not strength of body, but strength in our characters and strength in our relationship. We focus on life’s joys as much as we can and in doing so somehow create joy.

I don’t honestly know what might have been different had I realized earlier that my mother had dementia. And I have no idea whether I might have approached living with her any more or less cheerfully (or competently) had I chosen rather than fallen into doing so. At this point I can’t imagine having done anything else.

I may not have learned how to guide my fate, but I HAVE learned that letting fate keep on happening makes life– even life with dementia–into an adventure. My world with my mother may be small, but it is rich.

Coincidentally, Anita Loos was, like my mother, petite, smart, and lively. (You can see two of those three attributes in the photo below, from the online Anita Loos Museum.)

She was my mother’s current age, 93, when she died, although she claimed she was several years younger. More power to her. After all, “a girl like I” (to use one of the original Lorelei Lee’s favorite phrases) can be any age she chooses. Fate may keep on happening, but it can’t control the way a girl feels in her mind or in her heart.

Anita Loos

NOT Kitty Hospice

Part of Lorelei Lee's Care Team. Left to Right: Heather, Tori, and Sayward, with her nibs looking sulky in Tori's arms

Last week it looked as though we were heading for a second hospice situation in our house. Luckily, we seem to have averted it … for the present.

Tuesday evening Lorelei Lee, our 20-year-old Siamese cat, started acting weird. Her digestive system underwent frequent crises. And suddenly she could neither straighten out her body nor curl into her usual napping ball. She was sort of permanently arched … and not very happy.

She tried in vain to flatten herself to sit under the woodstove. At bedtime she found herself unable to nestle in the crook of my arm (her favorite sleeping position). She settled for crouching over me and resting her head rather sadly on my shoulder. If she could have sighed, she would have.

In the morning I called her vet’s office. Lorelei Lee has been a patient of Victoria Howell since LL was a kitten and Tori was just establishing her practice. We have all grown up together. Gale, one of Tori’s helpers, got me into the schedule quickly.

At the office Tori and her staff gathered around Lorelei in concern. Tyrone, one of the office cats, tried to kiss her.

The Romantic (or maybe just friendly) Tyrone

I had been aware that my cat was getting skinnier by the day, but I hadn’t realized quite how much weight she had lost. When we put her on the scale she weighed in at 3.8 pounds … down from more than 12 pounds in her plump prime.

Tori suggested injecting Lorelei with fluids and running tests on her organs. She also recommended an appetite pill and some new high-calorie food that could be mixed with the cat’s normal bland diet. (The poor thing has been on bland diet and baby food for months on account of her tendency to throw up every few hours when fed anything at all challenging.)

Regular readers may recall from a post in April that giving Lorelei pills is no easy task. I warned Tori that my cat was likely to wet her during the process, but she decided to take the risk.

Ironically, Lorelei behaved herself when Tori and Robin popped the pill into her mouth. It was only when Robin returned the ailing creature to my lap that the urine gushed forth. Lorelei may have been sickly, but she still had her wits about her … and she clearly knew who had approved the pill giving.

Tori lent me some deodorizing spray (my jeans smelled pretty awful) and sent us home with a promise to report back on the tests the next day.

To make a long story short, the tests proved reasonably promising. Lorelei’s organs are a little down, but they’re not out. Her back has regained its flexibility. And she has responded beautifully to the new food and the fluids.

In fact, she is doing so well on the fluids that Tori had me come back yesterday to learn how to inject them into my kitty myself. She, Sayward, and Robin trained me carefully (I did panic just a bit when I saw the size of the syringes involved), and I took copious notes.

I foresee a lot of urine in my future … but for the moment I also foresee a live cat.

I have no idea which of her lives Lorelei Lee is currently living. Apparently, she—like my mother—has more than nine at her disposal.

It is a huge relief to me that she isn’t dying right now, however. I know it’s just a matter of time. But it’s a matter of time for all of us.

Frankly, I wasn’t ready to have kitty hospice as well as mother hospice in the house.

I know my situation is much better than that of many others. I have professional and neighborly support both with both my mother and my cat. There are only two of them. And both Taffy and Lorelei have lived long, happy, healthy lives. It’s hard to complain about the possibility of losing either of them.

Nevertheless, I’m glad to be able to watch Lorelei rest under the woodstove just a little longer.