Matt is one of the most interesting residents at the Mansion, and one of the most intelligent people i have met in awhile. I don’t know his story, or even how he came to the Mansion.
He comes to our Bingo games every Friday night, and is the runaway champion, and I know him to be a voracious reader. Matt rarely asks for anything, but he asked the other night if I could help him get a sweatshirt for him.
I ordered two, one black, above, and one cranberry, coming later in the week. This is so important at the Mansion a Medicaid facility. The residents rarely have any extra money on hand.
It’s getting cold up here, and without a sweatshirt, Matt can’t comfortable go on a walk, and walking is important to him for many reasons. This is yet another example of how small acts can yield great kindness.
And this is what we do at the Mansion, we fill the small holes in life. It lifts my heart to walk the hills and see people wearing sweaters, shoes, pants, hats that we got them. Morgan Jones, the Mansion Director (she is leaving next week for another job, this one in Saratoga) told me we had transformed the Mansion with our work.
That was a good thing to hear.
If you wish to contribute to this work, you can send a contribution to me, Jon Katz. P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or donate via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark your payment for “The Mansion.”
It lifts my heart to see Matt walking because of a sweatshirt we got for him.
Ruth was waiting for me when we got to the Mansion for Bingo night, she tugged at my sleeve. “Jon,” she said in a straightforward way, “my hubbie died a couple of days ago.” Her husband Ken – the two of them were inseparable – died after a long illness and months in and out of nursing homes.
I always found the two of them sitting in the Great Room holding hands, when Ken was ill, we got Ruth a small TV so the two of then could watch it while he was bed bound.
I knew it wouldn’t be long, but I felt for Ruth, she is a sweet and innocent soul. I asked her if there was anything I could do for her, and she said she needed two sweatshirts, some personal clothes, and also, she would love to get letters from the Army Of Good.
I got the sweatshirts and clothes she wanted, I think Ruth also needs some love and comfort, she would love to get letters from you. You can write her c/o Ruth, The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
She is not always able to reply. I asked Ruth if she liked to read, she said, she did, but only books with simple words and large type – some likes some illustrated children’s books to me. If you have any you think might be appropriate, it would be great to send them to her.
I was pleased that four different residents came up to me tonight during and after our Bingo game and told of some of the things they needed – large sweatshirts and sweatpants, colored underwear, a good pair of walking shoes.
It took a long time – perhaps a couple of years before the residents would approach me and tell what they need. The staff also checks the residents each week and lets me know of someone’s shoes are torn, or if there are no combs or brushes ( thanks for sending some), or their clothes don’t fit.
This is gratifying work, and inexpensive, I know how to navigate every corner of the Internet and a half-dozen localThrift shops as well. I am an expert on women’s clothing and sizing. Small Acts Of Great Kindness.
This is work that matters. I hope some of you can write Ruth, she would appreciate it. So would I.
I’ve decided to publish a continuing portrait series of Joan, a close friend and a resident of the Mansion Assisted Care Facility. Joan has severe memory loss and I imagine she will be one of the first residents of the Mansion’s new Memory Unit under construction in the same building where she lives now.
I want to show the beauty and life that is such a part of the memory-deprived and of those often beautiful people whose disease we so cruelly call Dementia. Most of the memory-impaired in America are locked away behind closed doors, out of sight and mind.
But they have the most beautiful thoughts and souls. Joan is a great testimony to that.
There is nothing demented about Joan, she does not know my name, what I do, or where I live, but there is a love and trust between us that comes close to or surpasses people around me with their full memory.
She always remembers me, she never loses her memory of me.
We just love one another, we smile at each other, dance with other, and at Bingo Friday night, we sang Broadway shoes together. Monday, we are assembling a new built into-the wall CD player for Joan along with five CD’s – the Beatles, Willie Nelson, Fleetwood Mac.
Joanie thinks she is going home every morning, so she packs up her belongings every night. Her room is bare of anything but sheets and a blanket and the things the staff unpacks for her every night. Joan loves music, it calms and soothes here, and I will be so happy to sit with her while she listens to the CD’s. So will the Mansion staff, she is much loved and cared for.
Joan’s head is full of stories and ideas, some of which she struggles to express. She gets frustrated, restless, confused. It can be awfully frightening and disconnected to lose one’s memory, and understanding of the world.
I am planning (with family approval) a series of rides around the area while listening to music, Joan’s absolutely favorite thing. She has lost much of her memory, but none of her sweetness, joy and passion for life.
I am happy to say that like so many others who know her, I love Joanie, and I’m not sure, but I think she loves me back. She loves to pose for photos, and I make sure she has the clothes and other essentials she needs.
I’m devoting this photo series to memory, and to the good people who care for the Joanie’s of the world, and the good people who have lost their memory but not their soul. I’ll put one photo of Joanie up each day for a while. Memory is important, memory is us.
I can’t do the Mansion work without your support. Please consider contributing by sending a check to Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816., or via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark the payment, “The Mansion,” so I can be sure it goes where you want it to go. And thanks. Our fund is getting pretty low. My next project is to purchase a Karaoke Machine for $200. Believe me, the videos will be worth it.
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”- John Calvin.
Tomorrow is my birthday, I will be 71 years old, born in the Lying Inn Hospital in Providence, R.I., to Eve Katz, my father was at home when I was born, he had absolutely no desire to be there, as was often he custom then.
The men waited outside, or at home, and swept in grandly when the bleeding was over. I guess that set the tone for much of my life. It is a new world.
I was the last child my parents had, and I never imagined being 71 years old, when I was young, the idea of being so old was really unthinkable. And I never thought I would live this long, my life was so filled with confusion and pain.
Here I am, I am a tough son of a bitch, as my friend Ed Gulley would say, I lasted this long and am still standing and full of myself and busier and happier than ever before. Isn’t that a kick in the ass? Crisis and mystery is just around the corner?
My blog here is my voice, and it has given me strength and direction. Maria is my life, my center.
I am married to an extraordinary person, and our relationship has given me a new lease on life, one I will not waste this time.
I saw this old barn the other day and went to say hello, you and me, I said, we are still on our feet and plan to be around for a while. The barn was like an old friend, battered a bit but quite proud.
It is true that you get wiser as you get older, and it is also true it is usually too late to do all that much good. The future does not belong to me. But I will use what I have learned and share my life.
Old men have no business being in charge, or telling other people what to do, they are too tired and cranky, their spirits too wary and reflective. You can know too much as well as too little.
I do not fight for power, I am happy to get out-of-the-way for the next generation. We made something of a mess of things, as most generations do.
My birthday is not a huge big deal, but it matters getting to 71 largely intact and with all of the parts I was born with, unless you count hair. I feel about 35 and I don’t do old talk or exercise in gyms, which I think helps to keep me alive.
The biggest change in my life is that I know when to speak and when to shut up and I sometimes need naps. Tomorrow, we are setting off after lunch for one of those sleazy motels Maria loves near Williamstown, Mass.
We will visit the Clark Museum, get Indian food for dinner, go see a play at the Williamstown Theater Festival, get breakfast at a funky yellow diner Thursday morning, come home early and get to work.
I realize that these are all things Maria very much loves to do (except the theater, which is what I really love to do) but isn’t that the point? I love doing what she loves to do, that is what makes a great birthday for me. I just learned that a few years ago.
Maria has reminded me that making love is the breath of life, and I hope to do some of that, it gives me a sweet and lasting glow, and reminds me that age is what you make of it, not what other people make of it.In those special moments, I am 21.
The impending death of my friend Ed reminds me to make good use of my time, and live fully every day as long as I can and as well as I can. Life happens every day, and one day in the not too distant future it will happen to me.
My dread is that I will have life a meaningless life, full of regrets. It’s not going to happen.
I like Maya Angelou’s idea of celebrations, it keeps me from dismissing the birthday as just another day for corporations to make more money.
“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you need to say your nightly prayer,” she wrote. “And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”
I vow once again on this birthday to not spend a day of my life mourning what is lost, lamenting what I missed, regretting the poor choices I made, writing angry messages to strangers, or envying a single human anything they have.
Next month, we get another dog, tomorrow I write on my blog and take photos and love my wonderful wife and see a play. Later this week, Red and I see some Mansion residents and help some more refugees. Friday, I will call a bingo came and sing out the numbers.
Can life really get any better than that?
Like John Calvin said:
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
It always fascinates me to see how even the most traumatic and painful experiences in life can become routinized. Human beings are adaptable, they acclimate and adjust and rationalize even during the hardest times in their lives.
As we see from the news every day, almost anything becomes normal after a while. It is now normal for me to see Ed in bed sleeping, barely moving. That is the new normal.
Ed and I have slipped into a new chapter in the suddenly dramatic story of our uncommon friendship. I call it the Silent Time.
It is really that mystical time, the waiting time, the unnatural time between life and death, the time i try to capture in my photography, the time that sticks in my mind later.
Every afternoon, after the hospice aide has left, I text Carol to see if she wants me to come over, or if it’s okay to come over. I never go there without checking in first, sometimes it isn’t okay to go. And she will tell me so. She knows I won’t be hurt if it isn’t a good day to visit.
And the last thing I want is to visit someone who needs something else.
If it is okay – she always asks Ed – I drive to Bejosh Farm. I stop on the way at Moses Farm Stand, run by the descendants of Grandma Moses herself.
I get six ears of corn, strawberries if they are available, blueberries if they are not. The peaches from Pennsylvania have arrived and the sweet melons are in. Today, I got a small box of peaches, the sweetcorn, and a melon for Carol and her family.
She loves fresh fruit.
I know this is good to buy, because the ones I bought the day before are always gone when I get there.
I know those are things she likes. Ed isn’t eating much any longer. I brought Carol a book of daily prayers and inspirational sayings, she loves books like that.
I don’t say much to Carol when I knock on the door and walk in. She is almost always right by Ed, watching him, handing him a cup of water, straightening the sheets.
I glance over to see if Ed is sitting up or sleeping.
Carol doesn’t need conversation from me, she needs me to sit and watch Ed while she runs to the bank or the grocery store or goes out to the barn to visit the calves or writes on her blog, or tries to take a short nap.
If there’s something she needs to talk to me about, she will say so and we go into the kitchen.
Otherwise, we hug, say hello, she takes the food and brings it into the kitchen to put away, I take out a novel and put down my camera bag and go and sit in a metal chair right across from where Ed is sleeping. I don’t take many photos any more.
By this time of day, and after visitors, Ed is exhausted and is sleeping. He used to greet me, sit up and talk or draw and sketch with me. We don’t do that any more. I say hello when I sit down, to let him know i am there if he can hear me.
In recent days, he doesn’t move at all, doesn’t open his eyes or stir, I hear his breath is uneasy and I see his eyes open and blink. I see his arms getting thinner every day. His left arm, the one he can’t move any longer, is usually hanging out between the bars of the hospital bed.
I see someone who is gathering himself to leave.
If he knows I am there, he doesn’t say, and I sit down with my book and start reading.
Carol said she got Ed to eat something before I came.
He wouldn’t eat or take any medication last night or early in the morning. Ed’s brother came to visit today and Carol believes that inspired Ed to eat and take some of his medications. Is that a good thing, I wonder? He calmed down then, and Carol felt he was better than yesterday.
Carol is all about family, and when family comes, she is happier. She looks exhausted to me, she said she sat up with Ed all night.
I sat with Ed in silence, Carol was in the next room, writing her blog posts for the day.
It is a peaceful time for me, a meditation, and in its own way, a conversation with Ed. I turn off my cell phone, I listen to the silence.
I have learned in my life that you don’t have to speak to have a conversation, you can just be present. I feel Ed’s presence, and on some level, I believe he knows that I am there.
I love the silence, it wraps itself around me, it calms and heals me. I hope Ed is feeling the same thing.
And that is what is needed from me now, a silent presence, a chance for Carol to break away and take care of her life without worrying about Ed falling out of bed or tangling himself in sheets and blankets. She has come to trust me, she will go out for an hour or so sometimes.
Ed, too, is okay being silent around me. That is also what he needs.
I read about 50 pages of my novel, then got up to find Carol and tell her I was leaving to call the Bingo game at the Mansion.
She thanked me for coming, and for the food. Every day she tells me I am doing too much, and every day I tell her I am doing very little. I get to go home. She always laughs or smiles at this. Every hour she gets to rest or do her own work is precious.
I say goodbye, I’ll check in tomorrow after lunch and come by if she or Ed wants.
We hugged again and I leave. I am tired, Maria thinks my fatigue is emotional. I cancelled my writing workshop until September.
We are in a pattern now, a rhythm. We are in the Silent Time, the time of waiting and listening and feeling.
