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Poetry – What I Learned from Our Son

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How the deep bond between a man and a boy, grandfather and grandson taught me about poetry.

Walter, my father-in-law suffered for five long years from Alzheimer’s disease.  His dependency over that time became the elephant in our midst. He lurched from anger, to sadness to confusion and back to anger at his cognitive losses.  During ever decreasing lucid moments, he would smile in fleeting  recognition even though he forgot our names only to plunge again into no mans land where we couldn’t reach him.  Day in and day out, he spent in front of the television even though he couldn’t understand what was going on.  He dozed and nibbled snacks.  He wouldn’t eat a full meal and forgot how to use a fork, so ate with his fingers.  He became a dependant baby animal and lost touch with everything that made him human.   Lost in the maze of a home in which he lived for over 20 years, his tortuous days and nights were filled with endless hours of not knowing who shared his world.  At times he wept because he was frightened by his image who he called the man in the mirror.

Walt, always an active man, was still well built and muscular into his late-60’s.  He initiated arm wrestling contests with his sons and grandsons and nearly always won.  In his youth he mined copper in the rough and tumble town of Butte, Montana.  He was proud of where he came from and what he achieved not only by his physical hardiness but also his strength of mind and character.  He built a two story home for his family from the ground up in Butte.  He built the family’s summer cabin at Georgetown Lake.  He was carpenter, plumber and electrician all in one.  As a true Finn, Walt felt it was necessary to add a sauna to every house they lived in as he moved his family from Butte to Anchorage to Seattle searching for a better life.  With less than a high school education he pulled himself up out of the mines and into the business community.  He always laughed when he said he went to the best university life had to offer, the school of hard knocks.  By the age of 35 he was a city councilman and owned a grocery store uptown in Butte.  He and his wife, Pearl, raised and college educated three children and delighted in their seven grandchildren.

            The effects of his illness devastated our family.  His physical death came three years later than the death of his soul.  Walt, the man we loved, disappeared long before he was buried.  The disease not only looted his mind, it took his spirit and left behind an infantile creature with dull eyes.  Physically he withered to barely 100 pounds.  Pearl, his wife of over 50 years, insisted on keeping him home to take care of him herself.  The last few months of feeding, bathing, changing diapers and being on constant call wore through even her relentless patience.  Her dejected face revealed the pain of watching her husband, lover, and companion grow ever more distant and helpless under her care.  Family members took turns spending three or four hours at a time with him to give her a break.  During those times he cried or snarled and mumbled incoherently because it took longer and longer to remember words to make phrases.  When he finally put a few words together he demanded, “Where did mommy go?” 

            When he was hospitalized after a slight heart attack, we took turns staying with him at the hospital because the strange surroundings terrified him. He wouldn’t stay in bed unless he was occupied or distracted by someone.  I took photograph albums and showed him pictures of his life in Butte, the only past he could recall.  Occasionally a glimmer of recollection came, and he would struggle to name a name or describe a place.  Since nurses couldn’t spend all their time with him my husband, Ken, stayed in his room all night every night because he awakened so often.

            When Walt died, Casey, our son, was 18, a freshman at Washington State University, and a typical teen.  Being both gregarious and shy, a charming, contradictory combination, made him popular with his peers.  Casey’s best friend in 7th grade was still his best friend twenty years later, even though they chose different colleges and paths in life.  He has a whole raft of friends who used our home and refrigerator as their own.  In self-defense, I learned to dress immediately upon arising when Casey was home because often I stumbled over sleeping bodies when I went downstairs to let the dog out.  I got caught a couple of times in my nighty by strangers who said Casey told them they could crash on our couch or family room floor after a late night or disagreement with parents.  Casey spent hours on the phone.  I believe he was the social secretary for his group since nothing was planned without his direct contact with each and every friend.  When he was away from home, the telephone was his only means of communication with us, most commonly, a request for money.  I was never totally positive that he even learned how to write.

Casey’s room resembled Nagasaki after the bomb.  Momentos from rock concerts and Japan were strewn among dirty clothes, heaps of clean clothes lay scattered on the floor among school papers, matchbox cars, and stuffed animals.  His walls were a collage of rock posters, sports souvenirs, photos of friends, and lists of the current top 100 rock tunes.  The built-in desk, which went the length of one wall, had an assortment of unusual beer bottles, more stuffed animals and games lying on it and no room for studying, which was generally done in front of the TV in the kitchen.  From his door to his stereo to his waterbed, there was a small, barely visible path amongst the rubble.

            Casey had a reverence for ear-splitting heavy metal music along with an appreciation of such classics as the Beach Boys and the Beatles.  He taught himself to play the piano, then learned guitar, which he refined daily in his room, hooked to his amplifier with his headphones so we couldn’t hear it.

            In his 15th year, Casey grew from five feet to six feet and added an inch each year for the next two years.  His weight never caught up.  He was unbelievably thin at eighteen, weighing only one hundred twenty-five pounds.  His shadow scrambled to stay visible when he turned sideways.  He liked his hair long, but his brown locks curled so that, even when grown well below his shoulders, they kinked up tightly at the base of his neck, natural dreads.  He wore a diamond stud in his ear, a personal affectation which gave his conservative father apoplexy.  They negotiated.  Casey didn’t wear his earring in his father’s presence.  That changed over time as Ken learned to accept Casey’s personal sense of style.

            Casey’s main passion, other than a current girlfriend, was and still is the University of Washington Husky football.  Actually, I believe Husky football has, on occasion, come first.  He played football and loved it at a younger age, but had the good sense to quit when his teammates got beefy while he stayed reedy.  He is probably the only kid to sit in the enemy student section at Washington State University during the Apple Cup rivalry game, cheering for his beloved Huskys to beat WSU …and live to tell about it.

            Casey’s second love was Japan, which he visited twice as a teen.  It was the focus of his degree program in International Studies.  Another of his diversions was magic.  His blue eyes gleamed when he mastered yet another illusion to baffle his poor mom.  All in all, Casey was a standard model for his generation, delightful and contrary.

            Fishing with Walt was a highlight of Casey’s youth.  He looked forward to annual trips to Westport with his dad and grandpa.  Casey enjoyed Walt’s company and would sometimes get off his school bus at an earlier stop to visit his grandparents.  Grandma fed him cookies, and then he’d go outside to help Grandpa in the yard or in his workshop.  We lived only 10 blocks away, and his grandpa would give him a ride the rest of the way home after their visit.

            During most of Walt’s final year, Casey was away at college.  We kept him informed of Grandpa’s condition.  The bond between Casey and his grandfather was long ago established in the mystical way that small boys and old men see themselves in each other.  When Walt’s health began to wane, their connection was apparent in the way Casey watched out for grandpa when we took him somewhere.   Before we were aware of his incipient illness, Walt and Pearl traveled to a Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena with us.   After the Rose Parade, we walked toward the stadium for the game.  In the mass of people at an intersection, Walt was somehow separated from us.  He stood in the middle of the intersection, confused about which way to go.   The traffic began to move and honk but he couldn’t find a direction.  We were several yards ahead along the sidewalk when we realized he wasn’t beside us and focused on the commotion behind.   Casey, then 12 years old, immediately ran to his side and didn’t let go of him for the rest of the day.  Walt laughed it off, but it was the first real indication that his problem was more than mere forgetfulness.  Casey appointed himself Grandpa’s guardian and protector for the remainder of that trip. 

As Walt’s condition worsened, Casey was less and less comfortable being around him for very long.  He refused to visit his grandparents.  When Casey’s presence was required for family celebrations he glued himself to the TV and wouldn’t get involved when we had to help Walt eat or go the bathroom.  The changes disturbed him.  It was obvious he didn’t want to see his grandfather in that helpless condition.

            What we didn’t know was that while away at school, Casey wrote poetry and sent it to his grandfather.  We were shown the letters after Walt’s death.  To say we were surprised is an understatement.  Casey, who never wrote so much as a postcard to us.  Casey’s phone bills were a testament to his inability to put pen to paper.  Casey was always so caught up in sports and social activities that we couldn’t imagine his spending enough quiet reflective time or sitting still long enough to put poetic phrases together.  But there was the proof.  One rhymed and clever composition was sent to wish his grandparents a happy Halloween. It was an “over-the-river-and-through-the-woods” kind of poem about ghosts, goblins, and grandparents.

            When we called with the news of Walt’s death, Casey made immediate arrangements to leave school.  He took an overnight bus for 15 hours to get home.  Pearl asked Casey to write a poem for the minister to read as part of the eulogy.  Casey readily agreed.   We were surprised because Casey didn’t like being put on the spot to perform, not even his music that he practiced day and night.

The day before the funeral, while everyone dithered about making arrangements and finding accommodations for visiting relatives, Casey slept.  He slept on the couch.  He slept on the floor.  He slept anywhere there was a level surface.  I begged him over and over to get busy writing his poem.  He told me not to worry, it would be ready for the funeral.

            The next morning, again I asked him if he had written his poem.  He said no with a “don’t bug me” look and returned to his room, where he strummed his guitar and listened to AC/DC blasting on his stereo.  I knew that he was going to disappoint his grandmother and add another sadness to the day, but the more I harassed him the more firmly he resisted.  Finally, about an hour before we planned to leave for church, Casey came into the kitchen.  As I prepared food for the reception to follow the funeral, Casey slumped his 6′ 2″ frame into a chair at the kitchen table.  He tore a scrap from an envelope and started writing in his tiny cramped printing.  When he finished he handed me two scraps of paper.  On them was the poem.  It was beautiful.  He hadn’t labored over the words or created draft after draft.  He slept and dreamed and played music and let the poem form in his heart.  When it was ready, it flowed onto the paper complete and perfect. The poem recalled Walt’s strength, hard work, and devotion to his family.  Casey urged us to be inspired by the kind of man his grandpa was.    He acknowledged that grandpa was quick to see the good things in him and bloated his head with praise.  He urged us to never forget what Walt tried to teach each of his grandkids – to try to be their best.  He recalled a float in the 1982 Rose Parade with an old man and boy on it fishing.  The float said “Gramps and Me”.  When it passed by he and Walt looked at each other and smiled.  He asked us all “to take some care and say a prayer and remember what’s been said”.

            At the funeral, Casey chose to read the poem to his grandfather himself instead of giving it to the minister.  All eyes welled with tears as he recited the love and respect that he felt for Grandpa.  It was a simple poem, not rooted in rules of cadence and meter but brimming with a spirit and eloquence from deep within his human soul.  In those moments, as Casey stood at the pulpit of the church, our son changed forever in my eyes.  He grew from a lively, loving boy to a thoughtful man with the ability and willingness to share his deepest feelings in his own words.  It was then, from our son, that I learned what poetry really was, not as I learned in school, but the unknowable stuff of Muses and spirit.

Living and Dying in 3/4 Time

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One of my favorite philosophers, Jimmy Buffett, titled one of his early albums, Living and Dying in ¾ Time. There is a rhythm to life and there a rhythm to death. This is the chorus of his song Nautical Wheelers sung in ¾ time.

And it’s dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers

Take me to stars that you know

Come on and dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers

I want so badly to go.

In the 1970s, the Nautical Wheelers were a square dance group in the Florida Keys who danced the nights away under a tent. The song is about living life to the fullest, embracing the present with spontaneity, celebrating with people who live in joy.

These days, with news of friends and family dying, I’ve been thinking a lot about death. I am in the time of life when expiration dates are imminent. Baby Boomers are at the edge of eternity, and even those much younger reached the finish line ahead of me. The number of goodbyes has increased at a startling rate lately.

The first death I recall was my grandfather, Jesse Pottle Davis, 1888-1952, at the age of sixty-four, when I was six. I knew him, spent time with him, and loved him but was too young to understand death. It wasn’t until my father got down on his knees to hug me as close and hard as he could, crying, that I understood the depth and meaning of grandpa’s loss. My dad was my strength, and to see him so wretched was a life lesson. Dad died eleven years later at the age of fifty-two and my heartbroken reaction was much the same as his had been. The deepest sense of loss and agony. After several years of cardiac illness, his death from a massive heart attack was sudden and, I’m sure, painful

We are all living and dying. It is a fact. I recently started a journal titled 4,000 Days, not about counting forward days but counting backward from 4,000. I gave myself four thousand days to live, with a caveat for bonus days should I live past ninety-one, which is entirely possible. I did it after reading a poem by a friend titled Happy Birthday in which he comments that birthdays are not about accumulating years, but ticking them off toward the inevitable. Some people I shared the poem with found it a depressing thought. I found it to be funny and comforting in an odd way. The point is to make the most of each day as you count them down. A reminder to live each day. No one is given a timeline, a date certain. Even cancer patients are given hope and a range of time to look ahead. Our appointment to meet the hereafter remains a mystery to us. Thank heaven.

Many years ago, a psychic told me I’d live to be one hundred thirteen. At the time, I thought that sounded great. There is a definite difference between being alive and living. As I age, I’m experiencing losses I didn’t anticipate then. The loss of friends and loved ones. The loss of physical stamina. The lessening of my senses. I’m wearing out. If I lived to be one hundred thirteen with all the pieces and parts intact and all the energy of a forty-year-old, that would be great. But I discovered that isn’t in the plan. An old saying I read once said, “I prayed to live a long life, but I forgot to pray for good knees and a sound mind”. My full-time job now is to stay as healthy and active as possible so my long life (it is already pretty long) is not as a suffering, doddering vegetable in a wheelchair, but as a lively, engaged human who still enjoys each day.

My grandmother, Mabel, 1891-1977, lived to be eighty-six. The day she died she had driven one of her “old people” to their doctor appointment and to run errands. Her “old people” were ten or so years younger than she, but needed help. Grandma was there to help church friends and neighbors whenever she could. After Grandma was widowed, she lived with and cared for her parents until their deaths. When her two sisters and brother were widowed or divorced, they returned home, one by one, to all live together once again. It was a circus of the elderly who acted like teenage siblings most of the time. Grandma went home that day after taking her friend out and told her sisters she didn’t want dinner. She was feeling punk. She went to her room, laid on her bed, and died. Death came in its own time with no announcement.

My great aunt Molly, 1902-1999, told me something shocking on her 90th birthday. I was at her birthday party in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The house was full of friends and neighbors who came to celebrate her. She was very active in her church and community and in good health. She was on a bowling team and enjoyed going out for beer and pizza. As I was leaving, I told her I’d try to be there to celebrate her ninety-first. 

She took my hand in both of hers, looked into my eyes, and said, “I hope I’m not here.”

I was astonished. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Everyone I care about is gone. I have been left behind, and I want to go,” she said.

Here she was surrounded by people who cared about her, and she didn’t want to live. Her husband had died. Her only child had died, and all of her lifelong friends had died. Even in the midst of a loving community, she felt alone. She didn’t get her wish; she lived to be ninety-seven.

 Now that eighty is upon me, I understand what she meant. Not that I’m anxious to die. I have lots of things I want to do yet, and I have the health to keep going. But I understand her perspective. It seems that every month I hear of another one, two, or three friends or acquaintances who passed over. I have no fear of death but a little of dying. I don’t want pain to be part of the process, and I know that is possible.

I’ve come to equate dying with being born. Both are struggles, voyages into the unknown. Both make major changes in existence. First you are in your mother’s warm dark comfortable womb with all your needs met instantly. Then you are pushed and shoved through a narrow opening into the light, bright, noisy, world with strangers around you, hands moving over you and a sense of loss of your warm safe world. It is a violent change. There is nothing smooth or easy about birth either from the baby’s or the mother’s perspective. It is a struggle to become a physical human. Slowly your soul must learn how to inhabit this new form with its new demands. Your brain must reach for new understanding. Your body needs to learn to be autonomous. 

Touch can be painful, sound can be painful, sight can be painful at first. It takes some getting used to. Then you live a life of ups and downs as you learn to navigate our world and stretch to learn what “being” means. It takes a while. For some more time than others. We all learn through experiences, the trauma, the pitfalls, physically as well as emotionally of being a person. That is balanced by the highs, the joys, and the pleasures of our body’s sensual life, along with the spiritual and intellectual journey our worldly life demands – it’s a big undertaking.

The body contracts illness or is broken, there is heartbreak, your spirit suffers on your journey through life. If you are lucky, plucky, and resilient, your life is relatively smooth. Then there are those who go through agony in their earthly existence. Who is to say which path you will be on? Which tune will lead your dance?

And then we die. We all die, no matter if we’ve enjoyed the journey or experienced hell along the way. I’ve heard firsthand stories of those who died and returned to the living. I’ve read stories of people who are pulled toward the hereafter and are given the choice to come back to our world. All the descriptions I’ve heard or read make the passage into death seem a lot like the passage into life. Being drawn into an unknown world.

My mother told me that she experienced something like that shortly after I was born. Her appendix ruptured, and they rushed her into emergency for an appendectomy. She was given an anesthetic and left her body. She said she floated above the doctors, looked down at her body and watched them operate. Then all went quiet again, and she knew she had to come back to her life, so she returned to her body and her brand-new baby girl.

Before she died at the age of eighty-four, Mom expressed to me on more than one occasion that she had a beautiful life, a fulfilling life. I was with her when she received her diagnosis of colon cancer. She chose not to take treatment. The doctors said she would live four to six months without it.

She thanked them and said, “I’ve been given my ticket home and I’m ready to go. All I ask is to be kept as comfortable as possible until the end.” 

My mouth was dry. My eyes were dry. My heart overflowed with love and the painful knowledge of her impending death. When we got back to the car, it was hard to speak, but I had to acknowledge Mom’s courage. I told her I was grateful to her for making the decision so willingly and quickly. Then the tears began to flow. I said I believed she saved herself and the entire family the stress, the anxiety of watching her go through painful treatments. She was always gracious, thoughtful, and above all, decisive in her life, and she continued that to the end.

She lived four months. She made a list of “last things to do” (Mom was a list maker). The list included going to her favorite restaurant for a margarita, having a ham sandwich from Honeybaked Ham, seeing the movie “Chicago”, and spending time with her granddaughter, who flew in from Seattle. She wanted to see the new office my husband and I moved our company into (even if it meant going upstairs, which was very hard for her), and about ten more things I’ve forgotten.

Mom resided in an assisted living complex, in a one-bedroom apartment about one mile from our house. I went there every morning before work and in the evening after work to visit and comfort her. I spent more time on weekends. She didn’t want to come to our house, but wanted me to stay with her and talk, mostly about my life. I had a friend interview her and write some of Mom’s memories down. We had talked a lot about her life and memories, but I wanted her to speak without me in the room to see if any new memories were triggered by new questions from a stranger. My friend, Linda, gave me a lovely transcript of their two meetings.

I have a friend, had a friend, Diane, who died with ALS. I cannot think of a crueler way to die, inch by bodily inch, with your mind and will still intact, watching yourself diminish. Diane took tap dance lessons at forty. She learned to play the piano at the age of fifty. She played everything from classical masterpieces to show tunes to Christmas carols. She hiked, traveled the world, and threw wonderful parties. Her annual Christmas party had a guest list that grew each year because people she knew clambered to listen to her play carols and sing along.  For two years after her diagnosis, she made every effort to continue all that until her body no longer responded to her will. She put everything she had into those last years. Her greatest pleasure, she said, toward the end, was being with her friends. 

She embodied the joyful rhythms of life for seventy years. Eventually, every part of her body was disabled, only her eyes moved. Her mind never dimmed. She communicated by a computer that she directed with her eyes. She was loved by many. A four-foot-ten dynamo, she was engaged in living and loving life until she was stopped by the ugly shadow of ALS threw its shade over her. Finally, she made the decision to pull the plug on her oxygen machine and gave her husband the day and time. Family gathered around her at home to say goodbye and express their love. Her beloved chocolate lab, Diamond, was there.

I miss her, her energy, her laugh, her brightness. I mourn that her light was extinguished too soon. She is with me in memory. Photos of us on trips, golfing, rooting on the UW Huskie football team at stadiums across the country, spa vacations, and things we bought on shopping trips together are part of my everyday life. The big copper coyote she bought as a housewarming gift when we moved to Arizona hangs on the guestroom wall; the crazy Christmas tree that sits on high-heel shoes that I decorate each year; the matching raincoats we bought in San Francisco (hers was hunter green, mine red). We were supposed to go to the football game in the rain, but decided to stay in the hotel to watch it on TV, and didn’t wear the coats at all on the trip. (Our husbands braved the game wearing big green trash bags.) So many reminders of her and our friendship are sprinkled like glowing stardust through my life.

Everyone has a different reason for wanting to be alive or allowing death to come on its own terms. I want to live with as much umphh as my friend, Diane, and with as much purpose as my grandmother, Mabel; then I’ll die with no regrets, and hopefully, with as much grace as my mother.