A Visit from a Friend

I'm pretty sure this will end up being one of my all-time favorite photos of my mom.  Mike Corley, high school and neighborhood close friend, college roommate our freshman year, fraternity brother and, really, friend for life, came in from Sarasota last Friday and asked to visit my mom.  In the midst of a busy day as I prepared to leave town with my family for a week in Springdale, Utah and Zion National Park, I managed to find time to meet Mike at my mom's place after lunch.

And, damn, am I glad I did.

Watching my mom's face light up when she saw Mike was something I'll never forget.  It's strange and touching, too, because I don't think she knew who he was, or at least she couldn't remember his name.  However, I could see that deep in the dark recesses of her mind or, maybe, of her very heart and soul, that she knew this was someone whom she had laughed with, cried with (when Mike's longtime high school girlfriend and our dear family friend, Jennifer Grizzle, died), yelled at, and most of all, just loved with the deep, abiding love only a mother can have for a son and his best friends.

I saw and felt all of that in an instant as sure as I see the people around me this morning in Springdale, Utah, in the Deep Creek Coffee Shop I'm sitting in, sipping the first good cup of coffee I've had in 3 days.  It was ephemeral and it was palpable, which I'm coming to believe is the yin and yang of the Alzheimer's journey we're on with my mom.

When Mike and I walked outside to the parking lot after our visit, he seemed to be a bit shellshocked.   He had the familiar, sad and troubled look I see on friend's and loved one's faces who haven't seen my mom in a long time.  It's hard for them, I know, to see my mom in her reduced state, physically and mentally.  It's jarring to see someone who had a flame that burned so brightly with  laughter, humor and, well, life, to have her flame reduced to embers that flare only once in a while.

I also saw, on Mike's face, a look of sympathy for me, and for my family.  The kind of look you can only get from someone who was with you as you transformed, or tried to, from a teenager to an adult.  Someone whom you talked with late into the night about things insignificant and important, at least to an 18 year old's mind, like we did during our freshman year of college in our dorm room at Reese Hall.

The best part of the visit was when Mike was kidding my mom shortly after we arrived, sitting with her at a table in the common area.  She laughed, looked at him, and stuck her her index finger up in the air, giving him "the fake bird."  My mom's signature move for so many years.  Mike laughed, my mom laughed and I laughed.

And, for just a few seconds, my mom's flame flared and burned brightly again.  

A Room at the Top of the World

There's beauty everywhere.  Sometimes you just have to look a little harder to find it.

And then somedays, thankfully, you don't have to look very hard at all, because beauty is right there in front of you.  That was yesterday morning with mom, for me.

On the heels of an encouraging team meeting at NHC Place to review Mom's progress and current condition with the staff mid-week - great appetite, funny, a pleasure to deal with - I drove down yesterday (Sat.) morning to see her.  When I arrived, she was up and had finished breakfast in the common area.  She was sitting in her wheelchair, watching television, nodding off a bit.  She smiled when I sat down beside her and we talked for a minute or two.

I suggested we go for a walk, she agreed and I wheeled her to the doors, punched in the code and off we went down the hall.  Lately, on weekends, we've been walking to a small courtyard inside the facility, where we can sit against the wall, in the shade, and watch the birds feed at a couple of bird feeders nestled underneath 3 or 4 small trees.  That's where we went yesterday and I settled into a rocking chair beside her, after I positioned her wheelchair so she could look at the flowers, trees and birds in the courtyard.

Mom was alert and in a good mood.  She laughed when I showed her part of a video of Joe reading "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," by Mo Willems.  I took a couple of pictures of her and posted them on Instagram.  She laughed as I tried to explain to her how Instagram worked, especially when I told her that her picture had been posted for all of the world to see.  We talked some more, watched the birds and settled into the kind of comfortable silence you can only enjoy with someone you've known your entire life.  

After a few minutes, I looked over and saw that she had nodded off.  It was a beautiful summer morning in Nashville - not humid with the early temperature in the low 80's - although, of course, it got hotter later in the day.  Every now and then, she woke up and looked over at me.  We sat there for a while longer, just the two of us, my mother blissfully unaware of anything other than the moment in which she was living.

There's a kind of Zen in that, I think.  Maybe, just maybe, as she has settled in at NHC Place, a tiny bright spot of this terrible disease that's robbed her of so much is that my Mom is living in the moment.  Yesterday, at least, for one Saturday, she was happy and at peace.  I was, too.

And it was beautiful.  

Coming Down from the Mountain

For the past week, we've been staying with our friends, the Allens, in a cabin at Mugg's Pond in Sewanee.  Jude, JP, Joe and I stayed in the same cabin 2 years ago for my 50th birthday.  A few months ago, Susanna Allen and I planned the week up here and it's been a blast.

Unfortunately, with Jude just having changed jobs, her time with us on the mountain (as they say) has been limited.  She was here Saturday and Sunday, then came back up Tuesday night to be here for Wednesday (the 4th of July) and drove back home yesterday morning.

During the day, the boys (JP, Joe and Cooper) have been in the St. Andrews Sewanee All Sports Camp, while Russ, Susanna, Ella and I hung out.  The boys have caught fish in Mugg's Pond, just a short walk from our cabin.  We've hiked the Bridal Veil Falls trail - Susanna, Ella and I did it twice.  Ella, 13, had to be coaxed to join Susanna and me on the first hike to Bridal Veil Falls.  I couldn't help but smile when she said it was her favorite part of the trip as she gazed in wonder at the waterfall in the middle of the forest.

To say it's been a much needed, relaxing week for me is an understatement.  All Star baseball is over - more on that later.  The week of the 4th of July has been fairly slow at work, so I didn't miss much.  My mom's been on my mind, as always, but I'm comfortable with the fact that Tracy and Alice have been seeing her regularly.

Mostly, it's been going for a run in the morning after dropping the boys off at camp, coffee at Stirling's Coffee House on campus, lunch at home, a nap or reading in the afternoon, pick up the boys at camp and figure out where to go for dinner.  Lots of down time and lots of good, fun conversations with the kids.  I finished one book - Janesville:  An American Story, by Amy Goldstein (fantastic read) and started another one.

I discovered a trail run close to the cabin, just off 41A.  I've run the Beckwith's Point Trail twice.  It's rocky with lots of tree roots and very hilly, but under the cover of the forest almost the entire way.  In total, out and back, it's about a 3.4 mile run.  I love trail running, especially on new trails.  The first time I ran it, I found a bit of nirvana.  Spotify songlist (the Haunting) in the background and me, running.  Difficult trails like Beckwith's Point require more concentration and engagement so I can avoid falling ass over tea kettle or breaking another toe.  Maybe that takes my mind off things, that focus on the physical act of running.

Yesterday, my friend, Russ, and I ran the Beckwith's Point Trail together.  I don't think he really knew what to expect and it was difficult - for him and me - but he enjoyed it.  It's just a different feel from running on pavement.  Different in a good way.

We set up a tent on University Avenue that Russ brought the evening of July 3, so we would be ready for the 2 p.m. parade through Sewanee on July 4th.  The kids - especially the boys - had a blast catching candy from the people driving the cars and riding on one of the three floats in the parade.  Sewanee is a small, campus town and it was at its finest on July 4th.  Craft tents, lemonade stands, a pie eating contest, a dog show ("the Mutt show"), a tent of locals selling homemade BBQ (very tasty) and the parade.  Very Sewanee.

Why do I love it up here so much, up on Monteagle Mountain?  I've thought about that a lot.  I enjoy being so close to Sewanee, in much the same way I enjoy living so close to Belmont U.  There's a certain energy and youthful optimism on a college campus.  The temperature, of course, is a good 10 degrees cooler than in Nashville.  That's helpful, for sure, in July.  Trails to hike and run on are everywhere.  I love that.  Most appealing to me, maybe, is the slower pace.

It's been a good, relaxing week.  I'm already reentering reality, working for a couple of hours yesterday and today.  Almost time to get back at it.  But, until then, one more afternoon and night with the boys and the Allens on the mountain.