Taxidermy

 My friend called me at 7pm, distraught, a pigeon had been hit by a car and killed. He was wondering if we could send it to a person who brings them kind of back to life. A taxidermist? Yes that's the word.

I didn't have my creative brain on as it was the very last conversation I was ever expecting to have. I said we didn’t know a taxidermist and I suggested that he leave it beside the road for the shire to collect in the morning. He was worrying a cat would get it. 

I asked him where it was and he said in the kitchen and then said he'd talk to me later and hung up. 

I kicked myself a little for once again being a virgo and trying to logic the situation when creativity was required. 

It was one of those moments where I was confronted with the fact that I can't avoid the situation that I really don't want to be dealing with. But there's no one else, I have to step up and be the grown up. I also have to lie, I need to invent a local taxidermist, maybe one who lives by my work. It's in these moments that I wished his family was nearer and the I wasn't the one who would have to deal with it. But I can't sit with that frustration, I have to move beyond it, it's not serving anyone or anything.

I'm also hit with grief because before dementia he would have been the one that I had called on to deal with these sorts of things. The person that I used to rely on in tough moments, but that layer of who he was is gone.  

I'll call him in a little while.... maybe the 'switch may have flipped' and he has  put it in the bin, buried it. If not before I go to bed I'll be jumping in the car to fetch the bird and dispose of it all whilst maintaining the story of the taxidermist. 

Wish me luck

Update:

I called him, he was about to go to bed. I asked him about the bird, he was having trouble remembering it. I said I'd found a taxidermist who lives near my work, would he like me to pick the bird up and drop it to the taxidermist in the morning. He agreed. 

The deceased pigeon was wrapped up in a bathmat on the kitchen sink. I'm glad I went, lord knows where the rolled up bathmat would have landed in the morning and he'd never be able to tell me where the bird went. We wouldn't have found it until there was a terrible smell. The cleaner due tomorrow will never know how much she should thank me!

We unwrapped the bird and put it in a paper bag. The bath mat is in the wash as I type and I've disposed of the bird. My friend won't remember in the morning, if he does the memory will be gone by the following day. I'll never have to produce a taxidermy bird. 

I cried all the way home, I cried because I lied, I cried because of where alzheimers finds us and I cried because he was so sad about the bird and what had happened to it. 

Grief is hitting hard tonight and I wish it wasn't so late because there's no one to talk to

Letting go of the 'By Line'

The 'By Line' in a newspaper or magazine is the first line under the title where the writer is credited. In life the 'by line' is the internal notation of a gift, an act of kindness, an achievement, anything in life where it is recalled that you or someone else did something. 

A couple of days ago I realised that dementia was asking me to let go one of my own 'by lines'. You may recall from my last post that I had recently hung 2 bird feeders in my friends tree and that a few days later he'd forgotten it was me who did it. It was during bird hour when he mentioned that he loved the plates hanging from the tree and perhaps we should buy the lady who hung them flowers and chocolates to say thank you. I mentioned again it was me but he could see no correlation between the image in his head and me sitting in front of him. It was at that moment that I realised that I had to let go of my 'by line' and let him give credit to the strange woman who entered the yard, hung them and then disappeared. As long as the woman is not perceived as a threat or scary it's ok for him to believe that it was someone else who did it. 

People with Dementia live in a kind of parallel universe where things can be very different to our reality. By challenging their version of events it can be very scary to them, we would feel much the same if our interpretation of reality was challenged and we were being told we had imagined something knowing that it was real. Their reality is as real to them as ours is to us. 

In Patti Davis' book 'Floating in the Deepend' she quotes a from  'A Course in Miracles' : "Do you want to be right or have peace" 

You can be right and deal with the upset it causes when you challenge their reality or you can let go of the need to correct and have peace. After all the peace and happiness of my friend is far more important than my need to have the credit for doing something.

The first time I'd encountered this was 18 months ago after I took control of his diet. It was pre diagnosis and I was watching him go into decline consuming highly processed foods full of additives. At that point we weren't far into the journey and I believed I could reverse whatever it was with diet. I started doing his shopping and ordered healthy meals from a subscription service. We got him a new fridge and a microwave. I'd also spent a little time explaining the change in diet and how processed meats in particular salami were unhealthy for his brain. A couple of days later he was a bit angry and started talking about the woman who'd been coming in to prepare his meals, she'd been doing it for years, she presses buttons and makes the food. He was angry because she'd told him that he couldn't have salami anymore. I tried to tell him it was me getting the food and that salami was a "sometimes" food not never again. A couple of days in I had to let it go and change the subject. And then it passed. The change in diet did help, it reversed and slowed some of the progress of what we now know is alzheimers. 

So the new normal for me now is to listen to his stories and not dispute them, in the books I've been the reading they say to go with the flow and even get a little creative. As long as they are happy and feel safe it's all fine. And if I listen closely enough and ask questions there may be a good book in the making.

I have no doubt that there will be many more "by lines" that I will need to let go of. But I feel like this whole experience is giving me the gift of presence and also teaching me that credit is not always required, an act of kindness does not require notoriety no matter how small the audience. And that my sense of self does not depend on recognition or gratification. Not that it ever outwardly did, I've always been a bit more 'secret squirrel' But we do all at some level have a desire for recognition. I've spoken before how dementia peels back the layers of the person afflicted with it and I'm beginning to feel that it does the same for the carer. It teaches us what is important and discards the things that may have made us felt good but were never the true path to happiness.

Birds and Things

Most afternoons we sit on his back porch watching the birds in the trees along his fence. It's summer here and as the day cools the little birds flock to his trees to catch some bugs and play for a while. It's the same time everyday, generally between 6 and 6.30pm, that they begin to appear. Blue Wrens, Yellow Wing Honey Eaters, Green Honey Eaters, Silver Eyes, Swallows and Willy Wag Tails, all congregate like kids in a multicultural school yard. Occasionally the big kids, the Green Parrots or  Pink and Grey Galahs join them. They sit and joyfully chirp in a leafless Buddlea tree that is slowly coming back to life. We watch them dart around and catch bugs on the wing. Bird hour is an event and he's always lined up waiting for it

The conversation with my friend is always similar, always on repeat over the course of the 45 mins that we spectate the wonders of nature

" wow there are so many birds"

" did you see that one" 

" I think that was a Hawk"

" I'm glad we kept that tree. We can't ever cut it down" 

I wonder what he thinks about on the evenings I'm unable to join him.

Recently there's a new comment.... A week ago I hung 2 bird feeders from the tree, one for water the other for seed. The birds are slowly becoming accustomed to them. But my friend has forgotten who hung them other than it was a young lady who did it. I tell him it was me but his brain is no longer connecting the images. 

I've started taking photos to capture the moments for later when it will be something to talk about, a story to tell him even if he doesn't remember. 

I'm learning to slow down and stop and share the moments with him. They will be gone all too soon.