Shakespeare and Edmonton School of Ballet

Having to spend much of the summer in Edmonton to take care of my mother and to attend to my brother’s estate, we tried to make the best of it by registering the girls in appropriate summer camps.

The first was Tigana's participation in the Free Will Players "Shakespeare in the Park" week-long, half-day camp. It was well done and we appreciated the attempt to introduce Shakespeare to youngsters. The theme of this year's camp was "Shakespeare's Clowns", with the children doing bits from "As You Like It" (probably a good choice, since the other play they were doing was Richard III.) We all enjoyed attending the matinee performance of As You Like It, which was very well done; I was disappointed by the low turn out for this excellent production, but am told matinees are often sparsely attended but that night time audiences were quite satisfactory.

The second was the Edmonton School of Ballet's intensive summer camps. These ran for two weeks, culminating in a performance at the Meyer Horowitz Theater. This camp was entirely remarkable, a fabulous experience for both Tigana and Kasia.

I was first struck by the amazing facilities of the Edmonton School of Ballet. Here was an entire wing of a public school given over to studio after studio specially built for dance! You know, the kind of thing you usually only see in movies with the mirrored walls and floor mounted bars the dancers hold onto and the glass wall so you can watch the class from outside. It's like something I might expect to find in cities like New York or Toronto. I had no idea that such a facility existed in Edmonton.

Second, I was struck by the very high quality of instructors. Sitting around in the parent's area awaiting Tigana or Kasia to complete their lessons, I had many hours to observe the other classes in operation -- especially those in the classroom with the glass wall. As an Education prof, I have some idea of good and bad teaching when I see it, and I was astounded by the procession of remarkable teachers I was able to observe. They all had completely different styles, but they all appeared to be incredibly passionate about dance, about helping each student reach their fullest potential, and about providing a very positive learning enviornment, while holding students to a very high standard. I was extremely impressed, and wished I could have bottled it to show my student teachers.

Third, I was astounded by the very rapid pace at which students improved. I literally watched one instructor take a class of girls in the intermediate/advanced class from crashing into each other the first day to a fully professional performance at the conclusion of the two weeks. It was like watching rehearsal for a CBC production rather than watching a ballet class. I'm unclear whether the remarkable pace of development is a result of superior recruits, superior instruction, or simply the structure of the intensive two week experience that allowed for these students to achieve such heights in such a brief period, but it was very exciting to watch!

Fourth, and this has to be said, there was absolutely no comparison between the final performances at the Meyer Horowitz theater, and the parallel performance by the dance school to which we had sent Tigana in Lethbridge a couple of months earlier. We had been satisfied with Tigana's class in Lethbridge, but the performance by other classes --especially the ballet classes -- had struck us as the wrong sort of advertising -- they were so weak, we were left wondering if Tigana shouldn't take swimming next year instead. But the performance by the Edmonton School of Ballet was fantastic -- many of the classes put on productions I would not have hesitated to air on CBC.

Three things struck me about this performance:

First, the choice of music and the choreography were inspired. Instead of the usual "Rite of Spring" sort of rubbish, where one doesn't really know what the dancers are supposed to represent, these were magnificent numbers with humor or social commentary or beauty and grace. Instead of drumming my figures impatiently waiting for my kids' turn on stage, I was spellbound the entire show. This was inventive and expressive and what dance is all about!

Second, unlike our frequent experience in Southern Alberta, there was no attempt to sexualize the costumes. (THE COSTUMES! Did I mention the costumes! Holly mackerel The production values were better than the CBC -- well, these days anyway -- and they managed to put it all together in just two weeks! Astounding!) I am so tired of seeing 8 year olds dressed up in miniskirts and top hats like some mini Vagus show girls and paraded around as apprentice sex objects. Give me a break! But there was none of that here. The dancers were costumed, choreographed and directed in what I viewed as age appropriate but empowering ways -- I was struck particularly by a couple of numbers where there was a range of ages, how the 'senior' young women were able to produce smoldering performances right next to younger "peers" identically costumed, dancing the same steps, but somehow staying chastely unaware of any suggestive overtones. One could not help but feel that the dancers were expressing exactly as much of themselves as they were comfortable with, and thereby taking control over their bodies and lives in a way that was very different then when six year olds are turned into chorus girls.

Third, the standards achieved in choreography, both at the level of individual expression and group synchronization, were astounding. Indeed, one of the very impressive features of the choreography was how the same class was able to demonstrate both advanced and intermediate levels -- the advanced dancers taking a few extra steps to reach that little bit higher without ever upstaging the intermediate students. Indeed the mixture of levels in the same class allowed for much greater flexibility in the overall choreography as everyone was pushed to their limits and yet given equally meaningful parts to perform. At no time did I feel that any one dancer was upstaging the others, or that anyone was being held back.

And there were some stunning performances. As Mary put it, we'll see one of the male dancers on "So you think you can dance" in two years when he is old enough to qualify because that young man has definitely got a career in dancing! And there were similarly two or three of the women who are as good as any I've ever seen.

The best performance I've seen since last December's performance of Harry Potter by the Alberta Dance Theater.


Tigana and Kasia following their performances at Edmonton School of Ballet.

Anyway, we registered Kasia in beginning ballet class for 3 and 4 year olds and Tigana in both Ballet and Jazz. Ballet does not come naturally to our Kasia (she is, in a word, terrible) and we have no particular commitment to her learning to dance, but she loves it beyond reason, so what the hey. As we had hoped, she had a blast in class, and performed well enough on stage (in front of a very large and no doubt intimidating audience), but I don't see a career in ballet any time soon.

[Sept Postscript: On the other hand, watching (as apparently all little girls do) "So You Think You Can Dance" on CTV, Kasia has since demonstrated an unsuspected natural talent for jazz and hiphop dancing. Who would have thunk it? But no one offers Jazz dance for four year olds, so she may have to wait a bit.]

Tigana, on the other hand, made excellent progress in both her classes. She was at least as good as any of the other kids her age, and in my admittedly biased view, was better even than many of the older kids in her class. What Tigana lacks in technical skill -- having lacked some of the pre-requisite classes in Lethbridge -- made up for it with more expression and spontaneity in her performance, undoubtedly strengths acquired through her involvement with theater.

So, whatever else happened this summer, I cannot emphasize enough how impressed I was with the success of these intensive two week camps.

The root problem

The original plan had been for me to spend ten or twelve days in Edmonton on my own, clearing out Doug's place, etc., but Mary's tooth suddenly went south, and she had to bring the kids up a couple of days early and have me look after them while she went to the dentist. Five times, as it turned out.

After her initial consultation with an emergency dental clinic (something Lethbridge is not large enough to have) in Edmonton, Mary was told she needed a root canal. Although in theory Edmonton's larger population meant a better chance of getting in to see a specialist, in point of fact endontists were all booking months into the future -- which is fairly pointless if you need a root canal, since It's not the sort or level of pain one can easily ignore. Mary held out as long as she could, but ended up in the UofA Hospital's emergency clinic; and then our Lethbridge dentist recommended a colleague in Edmonton who worked Mary in.

We were very impressed by this new dentist immediately, and greatly relieved that he was indeed an endontist when we had all but given up seeing a specialist. He did the root canal, loaded Mary up with heavy-duty drugs to stop the swelling and pain, and we waited for her to get better. Only the dentist phoned back the next day to say that he'd found an extra root on the x-rays, and would have to open her up again. So, it was back to the dentist again. And then, a fifth time, later in the week.

The root problem (sorry about the pun) is that Mary is a mutant: one to two extra roots per tooth. So rather than routine root canals -- no fun at the best of times -- Mary's are always much more complicated and therefore painful affairs. It was only after her third visit to the specialist (and again, I emphasize that he struck us as extremely competent, thorough, and caring) that she finally had any resolution, though the tooth remained tender for days after even then.

Kasia and Tigana and a Tire Swing

Personalized Plates

Liked this personalized plate, spotted in Costco parking lot:

Late again

Tigana and I were in Fort MacLeod yesterday for her drama camp, and Mary and Kasia were driving out to join us for supper and Tigana's performance at the Empress Theater that evening. At 5:07 PM Mary phoned that she had been delayed leaving because Kasia was having 'a fashion emergency'. It can be incredibly frustrating having a four year old sometimes, because things that seem of life and death importance to them --like pausing to change into a fairy princess costume --may not seem as crucial to us; and vice versa.

While Tigana and I were hanging around waiting, a storm blew up from nowhere. One second we were standing in the sunshine, the next we were running for shelter as a terrible wind swept in. I thought it was raining for a second because the wind was hurling water from the sprinklers across the park to where we were standing. Once safely inside a store, we watched the clerk frantically trying to close the doors that kept blowing open. As the intensity of the storm increased, I looked out towards the direction Mary was coming from and saw a huge black cloud -- not grey, not rain-cloud dark, but actually black. There was something that struck me as distinctly "wrong" about that cloud. The word "evil" came to mind. It's the sort of black cloud that shows up in bad fantasy novels/movies to herald the coming of the evil witch/warlock. I debated whether to call Mary to warn her off, but she phoned me first. "We're okay. If you've heard about an accident, it wasn't us. But we'll be struck here for awhile. Ten cars or so ahead of me, the wind picked up a trailer and dumped it on top of a car. It looks really bad. The car is squashed flat." After describing how horrific the wind had been, she added, "Good thing Kasia made us five minutes late, or that might have been us in the car next to the trailer."

Today we happened to encounter the ambulance driver who had responded to the accident, who told us that since they had all been wearing seat belts, the car's occupants had all survived with only minor injuries when the tornado picked up the car and trailer and flipped them. Again, we had to think how lucky we were that Kasia delayed Mary just long enough that the tornado passed across the highway a half mile ahead of them, rather that picking our Honda Fit up and tossing it around.

Another, though less scary, example of the same lateness serendipity occurred when we were in Edmonton recently. We were hurrying to go down to the Street Performers Festival, but Kasia managed to repeatedly delay us, to the great annoyance of the adults. Mary was still muttering about kids who wouldn't come when called as we got to the LRT station. As we were fumbling for coins and trying to work the (initially) confusing ticket dispenser, Kasia walks over and hugs the kid standing at the next ticket line. We look up, and damned if the family -- also fumbling for coins and trying to work the ticket dispense -- in the next line aren't Kasia's friends from Lethbridge. I'm not sure what the odds are that both our families would be in Edmonton at the same time, or at the same LRT station, or even in adjacent ticket lines, but I am damn sure that the odds of our being there at the exact moment that Kasia's slow exit from the apartment arranged for us to meet is, well...spooky.

So Kasia and her friend spent the entire day together at the Festival having a great reunion, and extended playdate. But I am damned if I know how Kasia contrived to organize it.

Hawaiian Shirts, wasps, and the wet chair

Our trip to Hawaii being one of the few bright spots in an otherwise downbeat year, I have taken to wearing Hawaiian shirts as my summer default. They're comfortable, longer than most other shirts, and distinctly non-academic.

But yesterday when I went out to supervise the kids in the backyard, I found myself surrounded by wasps the moment I plunked myself down in the patio chair. After several minutes of coping with hysterical kids screaming "wasps! wasps!" I got them to calm down by pointing out that the wasps were not following them, but sticking pretty close to me. "It's your shirt," Tigana suggested. "They think those are real flowers!"

At about the same time I realized the chair I was sitting in had just been through one of the several freakish hail storms that have been plaguing our region, and the seat cushion was soaked through. Dripping from my now soaked pants, I retreated with the kinds back into the house to change clothes, leaving the wasps behind.

The next evening, the kids dragged me outside again, so I waved them off into the yard while I plunked my tired old man self down on the same chair, having briefly checked this time that it was dry.

Again, cloud of wasps. "I really have to change shirts before coming outside," I think to myself. But the wasps are landing on my legs even more than the shirt. And they don't follow me around the yard, just when I am sitting.

In that one chair.

So to make a long story short, it eventually occurs to me to look under the chair where I find this fully developed wasp nest:



Well, duh! Not the best place to sit then....

Polaroid-a-day-Project

Well, I'm getting on this bandwagon fairly late, but if you haven't already come across Hugh Crawford's and Betsy Reid's website with Jamie Livingstone's photo project, it's worth a look. Livingstone took 1 Polaroid everyday from March 1979 to the day he died, Nov 25, 1997. The thumbnail reprinted here is one of the most reviewed photos: it shows his wedding ring with his bride blurred out in the background, two weeks before he died. Rules for the Polaroid a day project were fairly simple: a day Polaroid a day, every day; one only; no retakes. It was basically Livingstone's diary, each image recalling the day or moment for him years later. But as Chris Higgins, the blogger who broke the story on this, points out, even if you do something very simple, if you keep doing it over and over and over for years, it eventually becomes something very different. Fascinating visual record of a man's life and times.

(And on a completely different level, it is interesting to note how Chris Higgins was able to deconstruct the photos to eventually identify Jamie Livingstone -- the site hadn't originally been intended for the public, and had not identified the photographer or those mounting the photos on the web, but Higgins was able to work it out based on looking at the people and places in the photos, and tracking through Google who was uploading material to the site. Which just goes to show that, given sufficient entries, there is no such thing as an anonymous blog.)

The Fridge

Doug's condo was undergoing renovations for several months before he passed away, which has further complicated cleaning his place up. As the men came to put in the new flooring, they had to move the fridge out of the kitchen, which meant I had to show up and move the stuff out of the freezer compartment for the day. Fortunately, Doug had a second condo, so I simply moved all the meat from his freezer (he had a couple months supply laid in) to the freezer compartment of his other place.

I fully intended to move the meat back at the end of day, but the flooring crew made a terrible job of it -- six inch gash in the middle of the kitchen floor, flooring over shims under the stove, and so on. Apparently their attitude was 'the guy's dead, so who cares?" But of course we care, and who ever ends up buying the place cares, so the contractor overseeing the repairs for the building insisted they do the job over. So besides my having to stick around for a few more days to supervise, I decided to wait the further repairs before restocking the freezer.

I then forgot all about it, and returned home to my family. A week later, I get a phone call on a Friday night that the neighbours are complaining about the smell from my brother's second condo -- the fridge has failed, and the meat has gone bad -- very, very bad.

I guess my first clue should have been that the fridge in the other condo was empty, since nature abhors a vacuum, and Doug was not one to let storage space go unutilized. But having just gotten back to my family in Lethbridge, I was unclear what I could do to fix the problem other than give the caretaker permission to throw everything out. But she was very loath to undertake the task, which she described as a lot worse than finding Doug.

So I phoned Pat, a buddy in Edmonton I hadn't spoken to in months, and asked him to take care of it for me. But when I phoned the caretaker back, she said they couldn't wait until the next day for him to arrive, and that they would deal with it. (But I still owe brownie points to Pat for agreeing to do it, even if in the event he didn't have to.)

When I finally got up again about a week later, they had thrown out all the bad meat, but he place still stunk pretty bad, several cans of air freshener notwithstanding. It was pretty obvious that some of the spoilage had leaked into the fridge itself, so I had no choice but to get the fridge hauled away. Even then, it took about another six hours of cleaning over two days to get the worst of the smell out; I left the place filled with odour eaters, so I'll have to see how effective they are when I next go up. But at least it is now down to a level that it is only unpleasant inside the apartment, and should not impact the neighbours. I tipped the caretaker for her enduring the initial cleanup, though I recognize that no amount of cash can really compensate for gagging one's way through such a job.

Just another distraction in a semester of distractions. I generally spend about 6-8 hours each day I'm in Edmonton sorting through Doug's stuff, trying to get the condos ready for sale, but it is very slow going, and I spend 3-4 hours a day with Mom, so there's not really any way to get more hours in to speed the process. It looks like I will have to move the family to Edmonton for July and/or part of August to make any headway. And of course, looking through his stuff, dealing with all the memories, and figuring out what is worth keeping and what isn't, is all kind of depressing.

On the upside, I do wear my iPod for cleaning/sorting and at 6-8 hours a day have now completely caught up on CBC's Quirks and Quarks, and am making headway on The Current, Dispatches, and a bunch of other stuff I don't normally have a chance to listen to, since control of the car radio seems to reside with Tigana and Kasia. CBC and NPR podcasting (radio on demand) is an incredibly wonderful development in my world.

Last Will and Testament

Working through the probate following Doug's death has been incredibly frustrating, time consuming, and not a little depressing. Mary and I have already devoted hundreds of hours trying to get a handle on Doug's financial affairs, and we're still only scratching the surface. Although I was fortunate enough to find his will within hours of my arrival in Edmonton, and although his will was extremely simple, the rest of the paperwork has been incredibly complicated.

There are two factors here: First, Doug's finances are hopelessly confusing -- he had dozens of accounts with different banks and stock brokers -- I'm not sure we have still found them all. He originally kept fairly good records of what stocks he bought and sold, but that record system seems to have broken down in the late 1990s; now we just have piles of receipts and cancelled checks, all piled in apparently random boxes scattered around the apartment. No doubt there was some system known to Doug, but I haven't been able to deduce it. Our only lead is that, being March, he had started on his income tax, so there was one table piled high with tax return info that gave us a bit of an entree to it all.

The second factor is the catch-22 is that we had to estimate the total value of his estate for probate; but we could not access any of the information necessary to answer that question until after probate. If we went to the bank, the bank said they could not talk to us until I could prove I was the executor; but I don't get to be the executor unless I can say how much is in each of the bank accounts! It's crazy! I couldn't even be positive that there wasn't a more recent will (though his lawyer was certain he hadn't done a newer one) because the banks couldn't even tell me if he had a safety deposit box, let alone let me look to see if there was a will inside.

Similarly, I guess I appreciate that credit card companies can't just allow you to phone up and say so and so has died, cancel their card, because it would be too easy to screw over your neighbour or enemies. But without being able to cancel his cards or access his mail or talk to the banks or stockbrokers, it's awfully difficult to figure out what he owed to whom or what income he had coming in. In the end, we just had to come up with our best estimate, and go from there.

And all of this was further complicated by my brother also being in charge of my mother's financial affairs for the last several years, she being blind, bed ridden, and no longer competent. If access to my brothers info was limited, access to my mother's finances was absolutely out of the question. Only Doug could have access to her accounts, and clearly, I am not he.

Doug's will specified Mom as his executrix, and me as back up; so I not only have to apply to have her certified unfit to serve as executor, but also for guardianship over her, so I could take charge of her affairs -- which now include the not insubstantial estate of my brother. But you guessed it, in order to apply for guardianship, I had to estimate the size of her estate, which is problematic because we can't get access until I'm officially her guardian!

And the process is so slooowww. We can't move on either probate or guardianship without the report from mom's doctor, who has just left for three weeks vacation when I take in the form to be filled out; when the form finally arrives and we take it into the lawyer, he asks a million questions about mom's family -- when did my dad die, where was mom born, what was her mom's maiden name, where was grandmother born, where was grandfather born, etc. etc. Unfortunately, Mom was the one who kept track of family tree, and when she no longer could, Doug took it on. I had no clue; and there is no hope asking mom anything now. So it was a matter of tracking down cousins and asking them what they remembered. But even there, why would they remember the year my dad died when I could even recall for certain (i wasn't close to my dad).

The irony is that, given that we had some glimpse of how complicated all this could be when my father-in-law passed away a few weeks earlier, I had suggested to Doug that, seeing how mom was approaching her 99th birthday, it might not be amiss to get some of the paperwork organized in advance when we were not having to deal with the emotions and funerals and everything else. So Doug had agreed that we should sit down when I was next due in Edmonton, April 9-10, and nail down all the required details -- basic stuff like where Mom's will is, and where her mother had been born and her maiden name and so on. And I had said to Mary, once we finish doing Mom's, I'll push Doug to give me some info on where he kept his will etc. But of course, he died two weeks before the scheduled meeting.

All of which has made Mary and I fairly impossible for people to be around, because we end up lecturing everyone we encounter to (a) do a will, if they haven't got one (we are astounded at the number of parents who have never given thought or pen to paper about what happens to their kids if something happens to both of them!); (b) to tell everyone where the damn thing is; (c) to have a list of bank accounts and brokerages etc etc somewhere with the will, and (d) to have joint accounts wherever possible, since accessing accounts is otherwise very complicated. I'm quite sure our friends, colleagues, neighbours, and grocery clerks are thoroughly sick of hearing us harp on about this, but good grief people, a little planning if you please!

Kasia's Field Trip

Kasia on the far right

Kasia's Montessori preschool/kindergarten made a field trip today to the city's Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens. I tagged along as a parent volunteer. Highlights included ringing the friendship bell -- the guide explained that whatever couple rang the bell stayed friends forever, so the kids lined by two by two to ring the bell with their BFFs. I rang the bell with Kasia, so one of the teachers said, "Now Kasia, you'll be best friends with your dad forever." To which I replied, "Is this guaranteed to get us through her teenage years?"
The other memorable moment (not exactly a highlight) was when kids lined up at the wishing well to make their wishes. Kasia turned to me and quietly said, "I wished that everyone who died would be alive again." (No doubt in reference to Portia, GrandDad and Uncle Doug.) *sigh* It's been a very sad year.

It takes six weeks to get there.

Another brief trip to Edmonton to feed mom. Of interest here was that Douglas has now joined the circle of deceased relatives sitting with her.

We haven't told mom about Doug -- there is no point since she wouldn't be able to remember for more than a few minutes, and we and the majority of the staff at the home felt it would just be cruel. (One staff member and one neighbour thought we ought to tell her, but they seemed to be projecting their own 'need to know' onto Mom.) The first few days Mom asked after Douglas, and I would just reply that he wasn't here today, that I had come instead. After that Douglas became confused in her mind with her long dead brothers, especially Tom, when talking to me; or she would say her "son was coming" to the staff, and they'd simply answer in terms of when I would be there next. But suddenly this week, for the first time, she was including Doug in her conversation with those from beyond the veil. As in: "Evie, why don't you have another cup of tea? Douglas, get Evie some tea, will you?" And clearly not addressing me, but the unseen individuals on the other side (in both senses of the phrase) of her.

Not sure how I should interpret this, but it does make one wonder. If there is something after, and if one retains volition, then Douglas would certainly want to sit with Mom. As before, it's something of a comfort knowing that Doug is there for Mom when I cannot be.

Pooka, and Kasia Sings the Blues #2

We took our dog, Pooka, to the vet on Friday because he hadn't been eating. The vet ran blood work and confirmed that Pooka had an acute infection, for which she gave us antibiotics, but also told us he was experiencing kidney failure and had the first signs of cancer. She told us if he didn't start eating again normally by Tuesday, we should sit down as a family and have 'the talk'. But we are hopeful that with the antibiotics he will have a while longer with us. The vet conceded that he didn't seem to be in any pain as yet, though he was probably feeling nauseous. But even at 18, Pooka is surprisingly spry, and seems to enjoy that part of his day he is awake, and bounds along more like a puppy than an ancient. But the vet made it clear that the best we could hope for is a couple of months.

Tigana was with us when we got the news, and this time Mom made a point of telling Kasia before Tigana could. (Regular readers will recall that Tigana's discussion of what happened to Portia, our other dog, did not go all that well.) Kasia was initially upset, but seemed somewhat reassured when she understood that he wasn't going to die in the next day or two. Then wandered off to do other things.

With Tigana, we always know what she's thinking and feeling because she provides a constant commentary and exaggerated emotional displays -- Miss Drama Queen all the way. With Kasia, we often have no clue what is going on in there.

Lately Kasia has taken up the harmonica. I didn't even remember we owned one until I heard her playing it one day, but not like you'd expect from a four year old -- no random blowing or even random notes. Actual, well, riffs. Darn if it didn't sound half bad. I subsequently recorded her playing for her Mom for Mother's Day.

Then late Friday evening when no one else was around, Kasia picked up her harmonica and started to play:

Harmonica riff,
"Oh, my dog is going to die."
Harmonica riff
"Oh my dog is going to die."
Harmonica riff
"Makes me wanna cry."
Harmonica riff

and so on for about seven minutes until she noticed me, and then stopped went on to something else.

Now I know what Kasia is thinking, but am left with the larger puzzle. Where does this stuff come from? We never listen to the blues in our house, yet, there it is. Harmonica and all.

Can't help wondering who Kasia was in her last life.

Mother Part I

With the passing of my brother, Doug, the care and feeding of our mother has fallen to me.

Doug went to the nursing home every day, summer and winter, blizzard or rain, to feed mother supper. He only missed four days in four years, right up until he fell ill himself. Blind and with no memory, she could neither see her supper nor remember it was there without his patiently spooning it out for her. Mother was always a slow eater, and now at 99, it routinely takes three hours to get her supper in. Her meals are all pureed, but she still has to compulsively chew each mouthful to liquid. There are frequent pauses to reheat the current course in the microwave, since the meal obviously gets cold over three hours, and reheating the food significantly increases not only her enjoyment of the meal, but also the chances of her actually eating. It all looks like baby food to me, but it is clear from looking at the trays of the other residents, most of whom do not require pureeing, that the food here is excellent; far superior to hospital food, with much less repetition in the offerings. With only three or four exceptions in four years, she has always raved about the soup; she expresses similar enthusiasm for the entrée about one day in three. Mom also loves the strawberry flavour Ensure, a liquid meal substitute, and I have found that by mixing her "Great Shake Plus" protein drink into her tea, I can usually get that in too.

Mom was extremely dependent on Doug; more so even than I think Douglas realized. Before, when I'd come up to visit, I would often go to the nursing home when Douglas wasn't there, to increase the visitor-to-hours-alone ratio for mom, but I quickly discovered that Mom wasn't the same person when Doug wasn't there. Most of the day she would sleep, or daydream, and neither the staff nor I could sustain much interaction with her. As soon as Doug showed up, however, his voice would trigger an instant rally, and she would sit up and engage with him for the duration of his visit. Of course, by definition, Douglas never saw her when he wasn't there. Douglas would talk about her good days or bad days, but the truth is, it was probably good hours and bad days, because she was never really there outside of the brief window of his suppertime visits.

Some evenings she would be lucid and have lively conversations with Doug; other evenings she would be engaged, but very confused; others she would simply sleep through the entire meal, not eating. Doug and I suspected the sleepy or confused days correlated to when she got her pain medicine renewed, but we could hardly begrudge her pain relief. Initially, Mom had more good days than bad, but increasingly Doug reported she was having more bad days than good (and that was Doug's biased sample of the 'good' part of her day, at that.) As mom declined, I eventually gave up trying to visit her when Douglas wasn't there. As even supper times became increasingly problematic, I came to see my role not so much as visiting Mom, as supporting Doug. I'd regale him with my ongoing monolog as he struggled to feed mom, and we'd get a decent visit out of it, whether or not Mom was able to participate. She was usually able to say hello and goodbye to me, but as Doug needed to sit by her good ear to feed her, she often couldn't hear me, and didn't usually remember that I was there, or who I was, without a good deal of prompting from Doug. But of course, the vast majority of days Doug was there on his own.

It must have been incredibly hard on Doug. I don't know how he managed, especially as the percentage of 'bad' days increased. Staff subsequently told me that it was not unusual for him to take until 10PM to feed her supper (which starts at 5). As mom became increasingly confused, it must have been hard to sustain conversation or find rewarding moments. (The worst was a brief period in February when Mom went completely deaf for a couple of weeks -- blind and deaf must have made trying to feed her supper very difficult and frustrating. Fortunately, her hearing partially returned in March.)

Living in Lethbridge, I can't be there every night, of course, but I have managed to get up to Edmonton for a week to ten days at a time. Whenever I'm away from home for a week, I feel guilty throwing all the parenting responsibilities onto Mary, and I miss my wife and kids horribly; but whenever I'm at home in Lethbridge, I feel guilty about abandoning my mom. There really is no way to balance that out, so we just do the best we can. (Mary is content -- and farsighted enough -- to have me role model for our kids that it is sometimes important to put others' needs first; at some point, we will want our daughters to occasionally abandon their husbands and children to come feed us supper...)

I have a great deal of confidence in the nursing home staff, who provide excellent care for my Mom. I think Doug's having been there every evening went a long way towards forging a connection with the staff, and by going up every few weeks, I've managed to maintain that positive relationship. But staff are not family, and my being there seems very important to mom. Not only don't I want her to feel abandoned, but I can provide the three hour meal service and the little touches (like extra cups of tea) that the staff's heavy workloads preclude. I cannot always get her to eat, but my batting average is better than the staff's (just because I have a longer timeframe in which to succeed).

Mother Part II

Good Days and Bad Days

I've been fortunate that most of the days I've been visiting mom have been good days. Once or twice she's known who I am, remembered my daughters and wife, and been able to hold a normal conversation. Most days she's been talkative and upbeat, but 'confused'. A couple of days have been bad, with mom either being too sleepy to eat, or too grumpy.

"Confused" is not really a fair description. The doctor diagnosed "Alzheimer's", but I do not believe that to be entirely accurate. The real problem is that mom has lost her memory, and is blind, an unfortunate combination.

Being blind, Mom has no basis on which to distinguish between dreaming and waking. Ever had that experience of waking up in a hotel or at a relative's and taking a second or two to remember that it's not your own bed? Or just that that was a dream, and now you're awake? Where the rest of us can open our eyes and look around to orient ourselves each morning, Mom has no access to accurate updates. On the contrary, her eyes insist on feeding her false images. (This is apparently fairly common among those who become blind as adults.) For several years, Doug would have to remind her that she was blind, so that whatever she was seeing wasn’t real, and Mom would go, "Oh yes, you're right." Doug would remind her that she was in the nursing home, and she would say, "Oh yes, of course!" And Mom would be able to orient herself back to the real world. As her memory has increasingly failed, however, her ability to recall that she is in a nursing home (which she has never actually seen) or even that she is blind, given that she is 'looking' at something right there right now, has also declined. So she isn't 'confused', so much as reacting to the sensory data available to her, which unfortunately is inaccurate. I am convinced, if mom could only see, she would be reminded of who and what was around her, and consequently lucid much more of the time.

As it is, however, with little to ground her in our world, she spends much of her time in her own. I often arrive to find her in animated conversation with people who aren't there; or when I ask her about her day, she'll tell me about visiting long-dead relatives in cities to which she's never been; or tell me that sitting on the plane all day has been tiring, and ask when do we expect to land? (Well, not an unreasonable question given that she spends the day in a reclining wheelchair, about as comfortable as a typical airline seat.)

Increasingly, Mom spends most of her time in 1948 -- just before or just after her father passed away -- surrounded by her friends and family. She often has tea with her mother as they sit in the kitchen after supper; or with her sister mid-afternoon. Her brothers amuse and help her; various relatives come to visit on a daily basis, especially a contingent from England who seem to be staying with them. These visits are the source of considerable enjoyment for my mother, who seems to revel in the company.

It does create a minor difficulty for me, however, in that I was born in 1951, and therefore do not yet exist in this world. When I tell her that I'm her son and here to visit with her, she looks confused and troubled. "Who did you say you were?" "I'm, Robert, your son."
She shakes her head as if to clear it, and says, "Robert? I don't have a son 'Robert'. My sons are 'Doug' and 'Ron'."

"I'm your third son."

"I only have two sons." And so on. I try to imagine what it is like for her to be sitting having tea in the backyard at her parents' home, and have some complete stranger come in and claim to be the son she hasn't borne yet. Freaky weird.

Even weirder for her is the disorientation that occurs when she falls asleep during dinner. I guess Doug was better at reading the signals, but I can't always tell when she is opening her mouth for the next spoonful, and when her mouth falls open because she's fallen asleep between chews. On one recent memorable occasion, I spooned in a nice dollop of pudding, and Mom shot up in her chair sputtering and crying out.

"What's wrong?" I shouted into her good ear.

"Um, urfph, ack" mom choked out, feeling around for a napkin. When I put it into her hand, she spit the pudding out.

"What's wrong," I asked again. "Did it taste bad? Was there something in it?"

After a moment or two mom calms down and says, "Well, no, I guess there was nothing wrong with it, really. But what was it doing in my mouth?"

"Um, I put it there?"

"You put it there?"

"It's chocolate pudding," I said. "It's good."

"Well, yes, I suppose it was. But what is it doing in my mouth?"

"Why not? It’s desert. It's supper time, and that was desert."

Mom's trademark head shake trying to make sense of what I'm saying. "But I was just getting on the train, and suddenly I had a mouthful of pudding."

She'd fallen asleep, and drifted in to a vivid dream between one mouthful and the next. Okay, again, how weird would that have to be? You're walking along the platform about to board your train, and suddenly and inexplicably, a spoonful of chocolate pudding materializes in your mouth. (Magic realism story idea in there somewhere, for sure.)

On my most recent trip, the problem of not knowing who I am was further compounded by her insistence that I was a woman. Her hearing seems to have lost the lower registers, and with the added difficulty of a slight cold that made my voice more than usually squeaky, she became convinced that she was hearing a woman. Having visualized a woman sitting next to her, it must come as something of a preposterous shock for said woman to then claim to be one's son.

It doesn't bother me. I don't really care whether she knows who I am or where she is, so long as she is happy. Her waking dreams seem to be mostly upbeat -- she often tells me she has had "a wonderful day visiting everyone" or "it's been a nice quiet day with Evie" (her sister). Got to beat sitting alone, blind and aching, in a nursing home.

Mother Part III

A Bad Day

The worst visit to Mom's nursing home for me this week was so bad that it's the stuff of black comedy.

As I arrived, the woman from the adjoining room waved me over. I hadn't seen her on this trip so far, but she had in the past often given me very helpful updates on my Mom. "Hello, [name deleted]," I said.

"Hello," she greeted me with her raspy voice. "Could you help me?"

"Of course," I said, "What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to die, now. Could you kill me?"

"Ah..."

"You have to hurry, though, before the staff come back."

The evening went steadily downhill from there...

The aid who brought my mother's supper tray told me that Mom hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day. The pressure was therefore on for me to get something into her.

Mom took two sips of soup, and then carefully held out the cup at arm's length. Thinking that she was aiming for her tray table, though way off the mark, I attempted to intercept it. This provokes a very hostile reaction. "What do you think you're playing at! Let go!"

"Oh, sorry. I thought you were looking for the tray table."

Mom gives me a disgusted expression as if I am a total moron, and says, "I was passing it to Evie, as you could see plainly see. What did you think you were doing, ripping it out of her hand like that?" and proceeds to stretch her arm out once again. Where the cup hovers precariously, and begins to tip onto the floor. I again attempt to catch the falling cup, and mom again goes ballistic at my interference. "What is wrong with you? This is completely unacceptable behaviour! It is not appropriate to grab my cup out of my very hand. If you interfere with us again, I shall have to ask you to leave." And again proffers the cup to her long dead sister.

"Evie's not here," I say. "This is your soup, and you need to drink it."

Again, Mom tilts her head and takes on this look of complete incredulity that anyone could have the gall to maintain something so patently absurd. "What do you mean 'Evie's not here?' She's sitting right there. You can see her," [Points] "on that wicker chair right there. That's Evie! Now stop being so rude!" And so on.

Eventually I give up arguing with her over who's there -- because, truth be told, I'm not absolutely positive that just because I and the staff can't see or hear them, that mom's family aren't in fact sitting around visiting her. Mom's not only completely convinced, she's convincing. I'm not sure whether I find this creepy or reassuring, but there is a long tradition in our culture that those on the other side sometimes crowd 'round to welcome you to the next world. Fair enough, if spending time with her family helps her with the transition.

But on this particular evening, Mom refused to eat at all. "I've already eaten, thank you. I had two great big buns, and a huge bowl of soup, and turkey, and desert, and there is simply no way I could take another bite." When I pointed out that they had just brought her meal and it was sitting untouched on the tray table in front of her, I was again on the receiving end of that disgusted look that I was contradicting not only her but the obvious facts sitting in plain sight. "You can see my empty plate right there! I had these two great big buns, and--"

"Mom, they don't serve buns here. You haven't had a bun in four years."

"How would you know? You weren't here when I was eating them." And so on. Again, the facts as I know them are in direct contradiction of the facts of which she is equally sure. She has eaten a huge meal with her family, and is now sitting having a quiet cup of tea, and what am I on about?

In the end I had to go home with nothing concrete to show for my visit, except for my own grieving: seems to me, if she is not only spending all her days visiting beyond the veil, but now taking her meals there as well, it may not be long before she moves there permanently.