Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Mary Tales

When your mother struggles to recognize you, as in she knows that she should know you but is not exactly sure why, that is a tough day.  Even knowing the day would come does not make it much easier.  Since this part of the story last appeared, Mary has moved to a nursing home.  Nice place, ridiculously clean, perpetually cheerful. If you have to put a parent into such a facility, this one is as good as it gets.  She is well-fed (it may sound bad but any time a group of Southern black women are in a kitchen, good things are coming out), clean, and never allowed to wallow in bed.  But.....

Dementia is a nasty condition.  Some want to see it as an alternate form of Alzheimer's, but it is far more insidious.  It not only robs memory, it robs cognitive ability in general along with motor skills.  And, there is not a damn thing that modern medicine can do about it.  In a sense, it is like watching a cancer patient slowly waste away, with one cruel difference - the cancer patient remains mentally aware, able to converse and reminisce, recognize hunger and thirst, and to a limited degree, participate in life.  The dementia patient does not really even observe life; more likely, he or she endures it.  Or, at least, the rest of the family does. 

My wife and I have been through numerous books, websites, and blogs dealing with dementia.  None tells a pretty tale - no patient ever recovers, no family gets through it without some scars, no one really cries when the end finally comes.  It is something one must see and experience to understand, yet it is not a fate I would wish on anyone.  The confounding thing is that there is no trace of anything like this that I can find in either side of the family.  Two grandmothers lived into their 90s, one grandfather to near 90, the other past 70.  The first three died of the obvious, being 90+ or near it, and the fourth I am not sure of, though no mention of anything like mental deterioration was ever made.  Seems doubtful something like that could be kept secret. 

We visit a couple of times a week; some trips are better than before.  On occasion, there is a moment of lucidity but invariably, it serves to raise the question of, why.  Why is this going on?  How long will it last?  When your mom, out of the blue, breaks from a string of incoherence and in perfect English says "this isn't very good for anyone", there is little mistaking what she is talking about.  And so we go on, visiting, trying to make the best of it, occasionally asking dad why he never clued us in about this.  Probably didn't want us to worry, through it would have made some decision-making after his death a lot easier and much less traumatic. We'll see what Tuesday holds.    

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Obama must be Roman

Leaders in the Roman Empire used bread and circuses to distract the populace from more pressing issues.  Likewise, President Obama is becoming increasingly adept at misdirection to avoid discussing topics he either cannot answer or does not want to confront.  Consider the past three weeks:  the federal budget is a mess, states are in similar bad straits, the Middle East is on the verge of either revolution or implosion, gas prices are spiking, and unemployment remains high. 

The White House response?  Two weeks ago, it was an announcement that the Defense of Marriage Act would no longer be defended in court.  Last week, the Oval used its clout to speak out against bullying in schools.  And this week, POTUS vowed to defend gender equality.  Can you say "the re-election campaign is underway."  How else to explain the highlighting of three issues that fly below the public's current-day radar?  And to compound matters, they are directed at three constituencies - the gay community, teachers unions, and feminists - who are as reliably pro-Obama as the labor unions.  Curiously, the unions actually are involved in a discussion of national significance, but the president has not had much to say on that.  At least publicly.  Given the frequency with which the head of the AFL-CIO visits the White House, however, there could be plenty of discussion afoot. 

I realize being president is a tough job but I keep hoping that, at some point, Mr. Obama will understand that has actually won the job.  Two years ago.  When a corner of the world is in a state of multi-national upheaval, people everywhere expect to hear the President of the United States say something, even if it as benign as declaring America's unwavering support of individual liberty and freedom.  We do not need to take up arms in Libya, Yemen, or any other Arab country; people there should plot their own destiny.  But we should at least give voice to the notion of self-determination in a part of the globe that has never seen it.  If people give the impression of trying to escape oppression, that has historically be the sort of thing the Oval Office supported, even if the support was only rhetorical.  

Meanwhile, the budget debate (if it can be called such) continues in Congress with Dems and Repubs debating whether $60-billion or $6-billion is a more suitable reduction, from a budget of nearly 4-trillion dollars.  Put a calculator to either set of proposed cuts.  It is like debating what type of floor mat to put in your Bentley.  If neither side is serious about actually cutting spending, and there is no reason to believe that either is, then say so and be done with it.  Tell Americans they can expect continually-expanding government until far more than the 35% of US paychecks are made up of taxpayer dollars.  Tell us the whole country will be one giant nanny state, where our minders will dictate the light bulbs we use, foods we eat, cars we drive, and eventually, thoughts we think.

Rome's ignoring of genuine issues led to the fall of the empire.  Already, America is in a state of decline whether it wants to admit it or not.  One reason is the unwillingness of elected leaders to face the problems they were elected to solve.  The elephant in the living room does not disappear simply because one pretends it does not exist.  The world is changing around us and the Senate Majority Leader worries about the demise of a cowboy poetry festival, the House Speaker and some of his deputies are consumed with abortion, and the President apparently stays up nights worrying about schoolkids being bullied.  And, all three wonder why some of us take none of them seriously.