I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: pandemic

  • the final new year

    the final new year


     

    She sat in her large recliner covered with worn blankets for extra warmth.  She was shrunken with age and her spine was so curved by scoliosis she slumped down into the bowels of the chair. It seemed to swallow her tiny body.

    She lost weight since she went to this place three months ago.   She didn’t eat. Her meals were pureed in a blender and fed through a large syringe. Open, please. Thank you.

    She wore bright blue flowered pajamas which I knew didn’t belong to her. She was covered by a Christmas blanket and looked like an incongruous mixture of Hawaii with the North Pole.

    Her beautiful white hair was uncombed, and she periodically raised her right hand to carefully brush a few strands from her forehead. There, that’s better.

    Two other women sat in similar recliners in the dark den lit only by the reflected light of a massive television screen which was the focal point of the room.

    The sitcom How I Met Your Mother was playing that afternoon.  No one watched this episode about misadventures on New Year’s Eve. I found the irony in the sitcom’s name since the woman in chair number one was my mother.

    She needed care for the past four years, and I regularly sat with her as her dementia progressed in medical jargon from mild to moderate to severe. Severe was where we were on that first day of 2012.

    I tried to talk to her about visiting my aunt, her sister-in-law, over the weekend.  No response. Mom had adored my Aunt Lucille so I thought she might be able to find her somewhere. Instead, she gazed at her black leather shoes on the floor in front of her. Slowly, very deliberately, she bent over and painstakingly reached for her left shoe. I moved to help her because I was afraid she’d fall out of the chair.

    Do you want to put on your shoes, Mom? She stared vacantly at me and shook her head. Ok, I said and returned to my seat on the large overstuffed sofa next to her chair.

    I made conversation with one of two sisters who cared for my mother and the two other mothers who sat in the recliners.   Mothers and daughters and sisters. We were all connected in the little den with the big tv.

    My mother ignored me as she continued her ritual of laboriously picking up her black shoes one by one, tugging on the tongue to ready it for her foot, fiddling with the shoelaces as if to adjust them and then lowering the shoe to the floor in front of her to the same place it was before. She did that over and over again. Ad infinitum.

    During one of her attempts, she dropped a shoe beyond her reach, and I put it in front of her chair with the other one. Do you need help to put on your shoes?  I asked again. No. I have to keep on this road, she answered.  She was on a mission.

    The mother in chair number two told me she tried to help my mother with her shoes earlier. She told me to get away from them so I did, the woman said with a note of exasperation.

    I’m sorry, I said.  That wasn’t really who she was. But I was wrong. That was who she was now.

    I talked and tried to avoid watching my mother and her little black shoes for an eternity that was only an hour. Mom, I have to go, I said.  She looked at me with some level of recognition and said Don’t leave me.

    I’ll be back in a day or two, I said, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek and told her I loved her.

    I love you too, she said.  I really do.

    *********************

    I didn’t know on New Year’s Day in 2012 that my mother would be gone in April after years of waging war against an unknown enemy who robbed her not only of her body but also her mind, her memories. It was a losing battle, but I expected the loss.

    Estimates place 1.6 million homes around the world in 2020 hadn’t known its mothers, sisters, wives, daughters as well as its fathers, brothers, husbands and sons wouldn’t live to see the first day of 2021. Shocked, dazed, saddened by the unexpected deaths of family members and friends, the fight against another unknown enemy called Covid-19 was briefer than my mother’s war but just as deadly.

    Vaccines discovered at “warp speed” offered hope of victory over the Covid-19 devil in 2020 although the roll out at the end of the year has been poorly managed in the US in keeping with the tradition of pandemic mismanagement established at the federal level in previous months. Agent Orange is so busy trying to keep the presidency through wacky shenanigans since the November election that he has no time to participate in governing. The president is AWOL, and time has stood still during the political transition while members of the current administration remain persistently unconcerned about preserving either our national security, our democracy or our sense of compassion for the people whose lives will be forever changed by the events of 2020.

    Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted, according to the gospel of Matthew. Garth Brooks sang of “taking any comfort that I can.” I’m hoping 2021 will be known as the year of comfort for mourners everywhere.

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

  • winter solstice, the great conjunction and k.t. oslin


    Last night Pretty came home from a trip to the upstate, sat in her favorite chair, started peeling shrimp from the low country for supper and mentioned we needed to be sure to go outside to view the Great Conjunction when she finished eating. Thank goodness the weather person on the 6 o’clock news had spent much of his time talking about the Great Conjunction; otherwise, I might have appeared ignorant to Pretty.

    And, but, or, for, nor, so, yet – coordinating conjunctions – seven words that connect other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. The Great Conjunction which occurred on December 21, 2020 didn’t refer to these little conjunction words sprinkled throughout my writing – oh, how I love a good conjunction. No, the Great Conjunction is the name of a planetary phenomenon that takes place every 20 years when Saturn and Jupiter pass each other at their nearest point which I won’t even begin to try to explain in planetary distances except to say they are way farther than it is from South Carolina to Texas. Think gazillions of miles.

    When Pretty finished eating, our little band of two plus three dogs walked single file as she opened the door to the backyard. The first day of winter, the winter solstice, meant darkness came early and stayed late. Night snuffed day like smokers snuffed cigarettes. Pretty and I stood together in the dark while we stared at the enormous sky above us. The dogs trotted off to make rounds.

    “Darlene told me it’s to the left of the moon,” Pretty said. “Or maybe she said the right of the moon.”

    “Your sister’s best help was starting with the moon?” I asked.

    “Yes. I think she figured that’s the only thing we could find.”

    “Point taken,” I said. But harsh.

    We stood searching the skies until I said, “I think I’ve found them.”

    Pretty followed my finger pointing to the right of the moon and said, “That’s a satellite. I can see it’s moving. You can’t see Saturn or Jupiter moving at that speed.”

    We gave up our search for the Great Conjunction after a few minutes, even though this was the closest the two planets had been since 1623. We were cold, the dogs had completed their rounds, ready for warmth and treats. The next Great Conjunction would be in 2040…something to look forward to.

    The only good thing I can say about the winter solstice with its longest night of the year is it starts the countdown toward spring. For 2021, I am also counting down toward inaugural events including the inauguration itself signaling a change in the direction of leadership in America. I am counting down to successful vaccines that will make Covid 19 as far removed from the world as Saturn is from Jupiter. I am counting down to longer days and longer lives, too.

    The year 2020 is the poster year for lives lost across planet earth due to a pandemic known as Covid. The world of country music hasn’t gone unscathed from that plague or other vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say. Kenny Rogers, Mac Davis, John Prine, Joe Diffie, Charley Pride, Charlie Daniels – to name a few. Little Richard, who I wouldn’t call a country singer exactly, but a singer who always entertained me when he performed and played his piano. Elvis’s grandson Benjamin who died at the age of 27 and is now buried next to him at Graceland. I didn’t know Elvis had a grandson.

    But on the day of this winter solstice, two more women died from Covid. K. T. Oslin’s name was added to the 2020 country music losses. K. T. (born Kay Toinette Oslin on May 15, 1942 in Crossett, Arkansas ) was one of my favorite singer/songwriters ever. Her music spoke to me as it did to thousands of other women in the eighties decade of the twentieth century when I was much younger and much more energetic just like the other boomers. In the late 80s I saw her perform in a concert in Greenville, South Carolina. She was fabulous: sexy, gorgeous, singing only to me. “80s Ladies” was her biggest hit first released in 1987, but I’ll never forget this one. How about you? Do Ya?

    youtube.com/watch?v=f5VGto1-N8U

    On 12-21-20 the State newspaper reported 21 deaths; 2,121 new Covid cases in South Carolina. One of the 21 people lost in the state was Pretty’s aunt, the eldest of her mother’s eleven brothers and sisters. The purpose of Pretty’s trip to the upstate I mentioned earlier was to stand with her sister and many of their first cousins outside a nursing home to sing carols to her three aunts who lived there. All three aunts had Covid. Unfortunately, Thelma the eldest aunt died in the early morning hours before they arrived, her Aunt Cooter was being taken to her doctor who later in the day diagnosed her with pneumonia and the third aunt, Iris, had severe dementia. She wouldn’t remember them or their visit, but family had gathered to celebrate “the aunts” with familiar Christmas carols while I stayed home to try to stay safe which is my Christmas wish for all of our friends in cyberspace this holiday season.

    I encourage each of you to stay safe, stay sensible, stay sane and please stay tuned.

  • readings


    Pardon another interruption from politics and the pandemic – this piece was originally published in August, 2011. For sure not a current event, but in this time of disconnection from family and friends, I needed a reminder of the feelings those up close and personal encounters gave me.

         Dame Daphne du Maurier, the English author and playwright, decries our infatuation with literary public readings by writers, noting that “writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.” She makes a good point, although I have to admit I love to read my own words aloud.  Maybe it’s because I often read audibly as I write.  Ergo, it makes sense I like to read to other people.  Often my motives are mixed with shameless promotion of my books.  In theory, people will buy more books if the author appears in public to read and sign them.  If you invite me, I will come.

                I was so taken with the sound of my own voice  I made an audio version of my first book, Deep in the Heart—A Memoir of Love and Longing.  My thanks to the three people who actually bought that CD, wherever you are.  Who knew everything in the world is now downloaded from some mysterious cyber-place and that no one buys audio books except the technologically illiterate?  Evidently, I missed that memo.

    I almost missed another one.

    Recently, I was invited to a book club that chose my second book, Not Quite the Same, as their book of the month.  It was the eleventh anniversary celebration for the club.  This diverse group of ten women met monthly for eleven years to discuss a different book chosen by the hostess.  Since I am not a person who likes to belong to groups or attend meetings, I found this record remarkable.  But, if you invite me, I will come.

    That night I had center stage in the intimate living room where the women gathered in the early evening.  The voices buzzed and hummed in the festive atmosphere as food and drinks loosened their day’s tensions.  A few of the younger women sat on the floor, but no one seemed to mind.  This was an informal group with good chemistry and healthy appetites.  The hostess made sure everyone’s wine or iced tea glass was filled.  The highlight of the meal was a fresh coconut cake baked by one of the members, but that was saved for later.  No one objected, and, as the last empty plate was removed, everyone settled in for their monthly literary fix.  I had prepared some thoughts on writers and writing, so I began with those.  Not too original and less than inspirational, but the women responded warmly.

    “What makes writers really write?” asked one.  “I’ve often thought I could write a book, but when it comes down to actually doing it, I don’t have the discipline.  I think I have stories to tell from my teaching experiences.  I really do.  Of course, I have some others that should never be told.”  The other women laughed.  “What should I do?”

    “That’s a great question, and I’d like to give you a simple answer.  I’m afraid I don’t have one, though.  I believe all of us have stories to tell and that storytelling is a primal need.  I’ve seen stones in New Mexico that are hundreds of thousands of years old, and you know what’s on them?  Stories someone wanted to tell.  They’re told in drawings on the rock faces, but they were someone’s disciplined efforts to communicate, and I felt I was there with the storyteller.  I never sat down to write a book.  I wanted to save my stories and the people and places in them.  They became a book because I couldn’t quit writing.  Now, it’s like not being able to turn off a spigot.  When that happens to you, discipline will be the least of your worries.”

    I was the first author to be invited to a club meeting—ever.  It was a fun night, and the highlight was reading my own words.  What could be better?   I had selected three different short sections from my book and read them to the group.  Their rapt attention and total engagement in the process pleased me and indicated my reading was a success. But, the evening didn’t end there.  Each woman, in turn, was asked to give her reflections on my book.  Naturally, with the author sitting in the same living room, they were beyond gracious.  No one cast a stone.

    What I found most incredible that night, however, was listening to my words read by readers.  Several women read sentences, paragraphs, or whole pages of their favorite words.  I never fully understood the power of writing until I heard other people read what I wrote.  My stories were safe.  They would be remembered and told by these women and others like them.  Although I thought the night revolved around me, I was wrong.  They inspired me.  These women treasured words and ideas that created bonds among them.  My words were now a little part of their wealth of knowledge that lived beyond the pages.  I was elated.

    Dame Daphne was in the vicinity, but she missed a key concept.  Allow me to modify her quote: “Readers should read, and writers should listen.”

    *********************

                Last week I visited my mother who is in a Memory Care Unit in a facility in Houston, Texas.  She is eighty-three years old and has lived there for two years.  She is a short, thin woman with severe scoliosis.  Her curved spine makes walking difficult, but she shuffles along with the customary purpose and determination that characterized her entire life.  Her silver hair looks much the same as it has for the last thirty years, missing only the rigidity it once had as a result of weekly trips to the beauty parlor and massive amounts of hairspray.

    Her skin is extraordinarily free of wrinkles and typically covered with makeup.  She wears the identical mismatched colors she wore on my last visit.  Black blouse and blue pants.  This is atypical for the prim, little woman for whom image was so important throughout her life and is indicative of the effect of her dementia.

    My mother is a stubborn woman who wanted to control everyone and everything in her life because she grew up in a home ruled by poverty and loss and had no control over anything.  Her father died when she was eleven years old.  He left a family of four children and assorted business debts to a wife with no education past the third grade.  Life wasn’t easy for the little girl and her three older brothers who were raised by a single mom in a rural east Texas town during the Great Depression.

    My mom survived, married her childhood sweetheart, and had a daughter.  The great passions of her life, which she shared with my father, were religion and education and me, possibly in that order.  She played the piano in Southern Baptist churches for over sixty years.  She taught elementary grades in Texas public schools for twenty-five years.  The heart of the tragedies in her adult life made a complete circle and returned to losses similar to the ones she experienced in her childhood: her mother who fought and lost a battle with depression, two husbands who waged unsuccessful wars against cancer, an invalid brother who progressively demanded more care until his death, and a daughter whose sexual orientation defied the laws of her church.  Alas, no grandchildren.

    My sense is that my mother prefers the order of her life now to the chaos that confronted her when dementia began to overpower her.  She knew she was losing control of everything, and she did not go gently into that good night.  Today, she seems more content.  At least, that’s my observation during my infrequent visits.

    “My daughter lives a thousand miles from me,” she always announces to anyone who will listen.  “She can’t stay long.  She’s got to get back to work.”

    We struggle to find things to talk about when I visit, and that isn’t merely a consequence of her condition.  We’ve had a difficult relationship.  Our happiest moments now are often the times we spend taking naps.  She has a bed with a faded navy blue and white striped bedspread, a dark blue corduroy recliner at the foot of her bed, and one small wooden chair next to her desk.  I sleep in the recliner, and she closes her eyes while she stretches out on the bed.

    The room is quiet with occasional noises from other residents and staff in the hallway outside her door.  They don’t disturb us.  She has no interest in the television I thought was so important for her to take when I moved her into this place.  I notice it is unplugged.  Again.

    “Lightning may strike,” she says when I ask her why she refuses to watch the TV in her room.  “Besides, I like to watch the shows with the others on the big TV.  Sometimes we watch Wheel of Fortune, and sometimes we watch a movie.”

    I give up and close my eyes.

    “I love this book,” my mother says, startling me awake with her words.  I open my eyes to see her sitting across from me.  She’s in the small wooden chair with the straight back.  I can’t believe she’s holding the copy of my book, Deep in the Heart, which I gave her two years ago.  I never saw the book since then in any of my visits, and I assumed she either threw it away or lost it.  I was also stunned to see how worn it was.  The only other book she had that I’d seen in that condition was The Holy Bible.

    “I know all of the people in this book,” she continues.  “And so many of the stories, too.”

    “Yes, you do,” I agree.  “The book is about our family.”

    And, then, for the second time in as many weeks, I hear another reader say my words.  My mother reads to me as she rarely did when I was a child.  She was always too busy with the tasks of studying when she went to college, preparing for classes when she taught school, cooking, cleaning, ironing, practicing her music for Sunday and choir practice—she couldn’t sit still unless my dad insisted that she stop to catch her breath.

    But, today, she reads to me.  She laughs at the right moments and makes sure to read “with expression,” as the teacher in her remembers.  Occasionally, she turns a page and already knows what the next words are.  I’m amazed and moved.  I have to fight the tears that could spoil the moment for us.  I think of the costs of dishonesty on my part, and denial on hers.  The sense of loss is overwhelming.

    The words connect us as she reads.  For the first time in a very long while, we’re at ease with each other.  Just the two of us in the little room with words that renew a connection severed by a distance not measured in miles.  She chooses stories that are not about her or her daughter’s differences.  That’s her prerogative, because she’s the reader.

    She reads from a place deep within her that has refused to surrender these memories.  When she tires, she closes the book and sits back in the chair.

    “We’ll read some more later,” she says.

    I lean closer to her.

    “Yes, we will. It makes me so happy to know you like the book.  It took me two years to write these stories, but I’m glad you enjoy them so much.”

    “Two years,” she repeats.  “You have a wonderful vocabulary.”

    The coconut cake we had for dessert at the book club meeting was deliciously sweet and well worth the wait.  But, the moment with my mother was sweeter, perhaps because the wait had seemed like forever.  Invite me, and I will come, and I will read.  But, I’ll want you to read to me, too.

    *********************

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned. I have voted. VOTE.

  • Nadal’s List of Unlucky Losers


    Yes, yes I know what you’re going to say. Why devote time and space to a sports event in the midst of a pandemic that continues to ravage the health and well being of millions of people across the globe? In the midst of institutional racism, police brutality, a criminal justice system with no justice, authoritarian leaders motivated by greed and mendacity, momentous confirmation hearings for a new addition to the United States Supreme Court rushed through a sham process whose outcome is not in doubt? Crises of climate change exhibited by floods and fires that chip away whole communities in a day?

    Immigrants and refugees living in subhuman conditions administered by a rogue contractor with the chilling initials of I.C.E.? And, not to be forgotten, the 140 million people living in poverty in the USA who slip through the cracks of our collective memory? Finally, the presidential campaign now in full swing again with the candidates hitting the trail heavy and hard in the remaining three weeks. Agent Orange has been healed, ramping up his rhetoric, promising to kiss everyone who isn’t wearing a mask at his rallies. Super fun? Super dangerous.

    Okay, so diversion from current political events was one of the reasons for my passionate following of the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris for the past two weeks.  Number two, as Joe Biden would say, is my ongoing love affair with tennis since my high school days on a tennis team with an unremarkable record. But for the past 15 years since a 19-year-old Spaniard named Rafael Nadal won his first championship trophy at the French Open in 2005, I have followed his career like a groupie for the Rolling Stones.

    Two days ago on Sunday, October 11th. Nadal won his breaking all records Roland Garros Championship number 13 in the men’s singles competition. An earthshaking achievement in the sports world that gave him 20 Grand Slam titles to tie Roger Federer for the most in tennis history, Rafa’s 100th. victory on the clay courts in Paris.

    Who did he beat in the finals for each of those wins? The Unlucky Losers are familiar names to tennis fans around the world:  Argentine Mariano Puerta in 2005. Roger Federer in 2006, 2007, 2008. Robin Soderling in 2010 (Soderling had eliminated Nadal in the Round of 16 in 2009). Roger Federer in 2011. Novak Djokovic in 2012. David Ferrer in 2013. Novak Djokovic in 2014. Stan Wawrinka in 2017. Dominic Thiem in 2018 and 2019. Novak Djokovic in 2020.

    Rafa turned 27 on June 03, 2013

    ( the day of his 8th. French Open title)

    Seven years later at age 34 he won his 13th. title in a tournament moved from its usual summer dates to the fall as a result of the Covid pandemic, with a new kind of tennis balls that resisted his patented spin, in cold temperatures very different from those on his balmy island of Mallorca in Spain, in a new Phillippe Chatrier clay court covered by a retractable roof that was closed for the final,  in a venue that holds more than 15,000 fans but was limited to 1,000 for the 2020 tournament again as a result of safety precautions for everyone who attended and participated. And yet Rafael Nadal prevailed as he had on twelve previous occasions.

    Today Nadal’s home country of Spain awarded him The Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit which is one way of saying he is one of the greatest Spanish sports figures in their history for not only his achievements on the tennis courts but also for his humanitarian efforts away from the courts. In her presentation of the award Vice-President and Spokesperson of the Council of Ministers, Maria Jesus Montero said:

    “There is little to mention about the curriculum of this outstanding person on and off the courts,” Montero said. “We are honored to convey this distinction to him not only for the undoubted sporting merits of one of the best sports in history at an international level, but also it is a pleasure to do it in a person who brings together the values of the youth referents, everything that allows us to be better. The Government makes this highly deserved sports recognition for one of our national pride, Rafael Nadal.”

    I am thrilled for Nadal’s victory Sunday and was moved by his comments in the trophy presentation ceremony that he was, of course, very happy to win but that it was difficult to feel as joyful as he could have felt if the world weren’t facing the challenges of the pandemic.

    His conclusion was the same one he makes in every victory speech, thank you, thank you very much…which is what I want to say to Rafa Nadal for the past fifteen years of entertainment and inspiration as a warrior on the tennis courts, a man who plays every point as if it is his last,  a man who never gives up, never gives in.

    Thank you, Rafa, thank you very much.

    **********************

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned. I have voted. VOTE.

  • sidetracked: takin’ any comfort that i can


    I have a good friend who is alone tonight following the death of her wife of 30 years last week. In the midst of the fear and panic we are all facing with the pandemic news every day, she must face the additional challenges of finding a new reality, a new normalcy for her life. I’ve published this post several times since the original in 2012, but tonight I dedicate it to Karen and all of us who are struggling to overcome.

    ******************************

    I’ve been too long in the wind, too long in the rain,

    Takin’ any comfort that I can.

    Lookin’ back and longin’ for the freedom of my chains

    and lying in your loving arms again.

    ——  Kris Kristofferson

    For the past few days I’ve been haunted by these lyrics, and of course I couldn’t remember the third line exactly so I researched the words on the infallible source of all information: my computer. Google knows everything which seems curious to me about how it knows everything, but then I accept its wisdom and move on. For example, I discovered that Kris Kristofferson wrote the song and recorded it with Rita Coolidge. I wasn’t surprised really because Kris is a wonderful lyricist who sang with a number of women through the years.   I was totally surprised, though, at the list of artists that had recorded the Loving Arms ballad. Olivia Newton-John. Dobie Gray. Glen Campbell. Mr. Presley himself. Kenny Rogers. And more recently, the Dixie Chicks. I was also stunned to learn that I can send the tune to my cell phone as a ringtone.  I’ll pass on that opportunity for now.

    I digress. It’s common for the words of a country music song to occupy my mind for  several days. I like country music. I listen to country music when I’m driving around in my old Dodge Dakota pickup by myself.  When I’m in Texas, I typically leave the kitchen radio set to the country legends station in Houston and turn the radio on as soon as I get up in the morning– right before I pop the top of my first Diet Coke of the day. I turn that radio off late in the evening – the little click it makes is my own version of Taps.

    I digress further. I tried today to reflect on the words, why I had the song in my head in a kind of loop. I’ve been too long in the wind, too long in the rain. Over and over again I sing it. Sometimes I even sing out loud, but mostly it’s inside. Were those the lines that mattered? Was that the secret code? Nope. No more suspense. No more digression.

    The key word is comfort. Takin’ any comfort that I can. I love the word comfort. You can have your words solace, console, ease and reassure if you want to. Give me comfort. Seriously, give me comfort. Give us all comfort.

    Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted. I’m not too sure about this beatitude, but I’ll let it slide because I’d like to believe it. All of us who mourn shall be comforted. Our frontage road of grief will slowly merge into the passing lanes of optimism and hope if we are willing to pay the toll required to enter. We pay a price for the passing lanes that make our travels easier as we watch our grief fade away in the rear-view mirror, if we are fortunate enough to have the resources within ourselves to cover the costs.

     Now I know the third line of the song perfectly. Lookin’ back and longin’ for the freedom of my chains. What a great line it is, too, but that’s a subject for another story. I’ll let you ponder it on your own while I say good night and take my comfort in two loving arms again.

    Stay tuned.