This Summer

This summer is drawing near to it's inevitable end and I find myself feeling reflective about what I did and who I did it with and what I wish I'd done better.  In June I looked at the calendar and saw many an empty week and wondered what I'd fill it with. The kids were not signed up for camp, no big plans were made and my attitude was very play it by ear. On any given week I could be at the beach house, in Brooklyn or up at my mom's. In fact, my friends would often text me "You around? Beacon? Shirley?", knowing those were the three spots I cycled through all summer long, never unpacking my blue back pack I lugged everywhere, transporting in it my laptop, an iPad, contacts, my array of Kiehl's products I recently decided I can't live without, snacks, a clean t-shirt, bandaids for the inevitable kid injury and pair of awesome headphones Josh bought for himself that I promptly stole.

This summer I feel deeply in love with my family. On a daily basis they pushed me to my limit and tested my dwindling patience and made me scream and shout and get it all out and blew my mind with their level of awesomeness. They have shown me unspeakable acts of kindness towards one another and deep insight into what makes me tick. They get me. And I get them. I looked at my husband many times this summer and felt profoundly grateful to be on this ride with him. Making babies and raising these little people and running our restaurants and witnessing our older family age. All of the little intimate and ordinary details of my everyday are shared with him and I can think of no one better to be in that position in my life.

This summer reminded me I can not be in two places at once, it echoed to me the sentiment my mother has always told me : the best gift you can give someone is your time. Everytime I went to visit my grandmother, whether alone or with one of my kids, I tried to have an experience with her. I tried to just hold the moment with her and leave my expectations at the door. I know in her own way, she appreciates the visits as much as I enjoy visiting her.

This summer I said good bye to people who had been in my life a combined 12 plus years, to a manager, a book keeper, my hair dresser. I watched a friend's marriage fall apart. I gave up on losing five pounds. I obsessed over getting the perfect lunch boxes for the girls' for school. I dyed my hair brown. I liked who I was this summer and I am crazy about all the people I got to spend it with, friends who visited me at the beach and hung out with me in Brooklyn and had moments with me. I loved all of our shared experiences. Thank you for that.

Rain Drops Keep Fallin On My Head

Last night I dreamt of packing up my grandmother's things, not like we did, from her final sad apartment that she spent less than a year living in. The apartment I tried cheerfully and desperately to convince her was great when we toured it together, the week after Thanksgiving 2012. In my dream we were back in the house she shared with my grandfather and everything was still intact, the house and her memory and my heart.

The contents of her bedroom were all there. The dark, oversized bedroom set, her satin lined jewelry box with its mix of heirloom and costume jewelry. Her oval mirror always sat atop her dresser and kept organized her perfume, powder and brushes. My most cherished trinket in her room was her tiny music box that, when opened, played "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head". She used to wind it up and set it on her dresser while she brushed my hair to distract me. When I awoke from my dream I could smell her bedroom, and my first thought was of that song. Many of her favorite singers had done versions of this song and I'd probably heard them all: Engelbert Humperdink, Perry Como, Andy Williams. Listening to old music and playing cards was how we passed our afternoons. How lucky we were.




                                        "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head"

[Originally by B. J. Thomas]

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
Just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothing seems to fit
Oh, raindrops keep fallin' on my head
Keep a-fallin'

Cause I just done me some talking to the sun
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done
Sleeping on the job
Oh, raindrops keep fallin' on my head
Keep a-fallin'

But there's one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me
Won't defeat me
It won't be long till happiness
Comes up to greet me
To greet greet greet greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red
Crying's not for me
Cause I ain't gonna stop the rain by complaining

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red
Crying's not for me
Cause I ain't gonna stop the rain by complaining

Because I'm free
Nothing's bothering me
Because I'm free
Nothing's bothering me
Because I'm free
Nothing's bothering me
Because I'm free
Nothing's bothering me

The Dying Light

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

I can not write about my most recent visit to my grandmother without first acknowledging the tragic passing of Robin Williams. I heard, like most everyone did, early last night that he had taken his life, at the age of 63. The fact that he was a father and a husband and a genius and 63, each one of these facts makes it all somehow sadder to me. I am reminded that life is fragile and to be kind to everyone, as we are all fighting our private battles in life.

My grandmother's battle is her disappearing memory, her erratic behavior, her loneliness. Alzheimer's is winning, as it always does. My visit with her on Sunday was not particularly good. I found her agitated and grouchy and mostly uncooperative. I am not alarmed by this as I recognize that it is all perfectly normal. Good mood or bad, I continue on with my plan for her when I visit, a snack, a game of cards, then upstairs to the activities room, despite her very vocal protests. She's not a joiner of activities she tells me. you are now, I tell her.

It's almost like I've had two grandmother's in my life: the woman I grew up with, who braided my hair too tight and fed me too much and taught me to play cards, And the other: the one I have I've watched forget birthdays and names and what she had for breakfast. I fully love the woman she is now and very much miss the person she used to be.

Good bye Uncle Mike

My grandfather's brother Mike passed away on Saturday. Their mother was Anella, the woman one of my restaurants was named after. He was born July 26th, 1927, and in a moment of life truly coming full circle, he died on his birthday at 87 years old. Below is an excerpt from his obituary, which does a great job of summing up his life in a few sentences.

Michael was a parishioner and an usher with Sacred Heart Church of Monroe and was a member of Teamsters Local #445 of Newburgh. He was Vice President of Mancino Trucking Company, Inc., the former President of Monroe Skating Paradise, a former member of Mombasha Fire Company, former member of Knights of Columbus Council #2079, and a former member of American Legion Post #488 of Monroe. He was a former Trustee for the Village of Monroe and retired as the Highway Superintendent with the Village of Monroe. Michael was a Veteran of the U.S. Army and served his country during World War II. 

Of course, an obituary only mentions the big stuff, the positions you held and places you worked and how many kids you had and which school you graduated from. It can never tell the full story. I'm sure he had dreams that were never realized and moments of beauty only he saw. In his 87 years surely his heart was broken many times and he took paths he later regretted. A life is made up of a million little moments, all colliding into each other and overlapping into a quilt of memories you have to reflect back on when you are older.  And perhaps this is what saddens me the most with my grandmother. Her quilt of memories is disintegrating everyday. It has decades worth of gaping holes.

I only knew my Uncle Mike as an old man (he was 53 when I was born, which for a kid may as well be 100) and always liked him. He lived two doors down from my grandparents on Elm Street in Monroe.  My grandpa and Uncle Mike's older brother Carl had the house in-between them and could be seen driving up and down the driveway in his car with his stick out the window. He was blind from diabetes and was permitted to pull the car up to the street. Not legally permitted, but apparently all the grown ups felt it was okay. As a little girl I knew to stay away from the driveway when Uncle Carl was driving.

As a teen I worked at a much loved deli in town, Monroe Bagels and Deli. Some of my uncles would come in for their morning coffee or a buttered roll in the afternoon, but Uncle Mike was the only one that tipped me, something that became a joke between me and my mom's brother. My boss at the deli Dave, seemed to know everyone, my family included, and I took mental note of how cool I thought that was. Many years later when I opened up my first restaurant I realized how very much like Dave I had become, in my work ethic and memory of all my regulars.

I will remember Uncle Mike as being funny and kind to me as a kid lying on his living room floor coloring while watching The Price is Right and as an awkward, bagel-slinging teen, grinning at his quarter tip. Rest in Peace Uncle Mike. I hope you are roller skating through heaven with a cup of coffee in your hand and a smile on your face.

East Mombasha kids

We were the kids of lovers. Of artists and painters and carpenters. Of adults with dreams we never knew, of lives we only saw parts of. Our parents were hippies and hunters and most of them smoked like chimneys. They went to work everyday and ate dinner with us each night. They chopped logs for our wood stoves and made us rake leaves til blisters decorated our tiny hands.

We fought with our siblings. We tattled to our parents and who ever else might listen. We fell asleep in the summer exhausted and covered in mosquito bites, greasy from Skin So Soft with hair smelling of citronella candles and firewood. There was no air conditioning, just a fan if we were lucky enough to get it.


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I mostly only use this space to write about my grandmother and my struggle with her slide into Alzheimer's. Yesterday I had the pleasure of having one of my childhood friends over to my mom's house for dinner. The Schernes and the Papagnis lived on the same dirt road for almost twenty years and we share a treasure trove of memories and stories of a childhood spent running through the same woods. Us children have all grown up and we now have families of our own. My mother is the only parent of the two families left and that breaks my heart.

I was driving away from my mom's house today alone when my phone rang. I glanced down and saw it was my mom calling and pulled over so I could answer it. She told me Maggie wanted me to come back. She really wanted to visit my grandma. So we hung up and I turned around and drove back and got my sweet middle child and drove with her to the nursing home, mostly in silence, thinking of the night before and how nice it had been.

A common theme with me lately seems to be the idea that life is going by so quickly. I see it in my children and how fast they grow. I see it in my grandma and her seemingly constant deterioration. I think about my life as a kid with a mixture of sadness and gratitude. All of it, my kids and my grandma and looking back on what was, makes me want to appreciate what I have now. I want these to be the days I look back on in twenty years and remember how wonderful they were.

Stay seated, hands inside the ride please

I don't care about anything anymore, she announced to me today. Deep breath, I told myself.

When I arrived it was nearly lunch time and I could see some of the residents had already taken their assigned seats at the dining room tables when I peeked in to see if she was there. She was not. I signed in and walked down the hallway, all the way to the end where her room is. Her bed was neatly made, topped with the quilt my aunt made for her, knitted from scraps of scarves and sweaters and holiday ornaments.  I walked back down to the nurses station and popped my head in the manager's office, a perfectly named woman: Dolores. She told me my aunt, the same one that knitted the quilt, had taken her up to the salon on the second floor to get her hair done.

Stepping off the elevator I could hear my aunt laughing and didn't have to guess which direction to go in.  My aunt and I helped the hair dresser take rollers out of a few of the ladies hair, and when everyone was brushed and hair-sprayed, we rode the elevator down one floor to have lunch. My aunt had gone ahead with Eileen, one of my grandma's table mates that I am particularly fond of. It was exiting the elevator when my grandma announced she no longer cared about anything. There's really not very much to say when she says something like that. I get it. This sucks and I don't blame her for not caring. Her moments of clarity are painful for her and for me.

During lunch Eileen declared that she lived alone and did not cook anymore, too much work she said, who can bother to cook for one person. Amen Eileen, I told her, I totally agree. My grandma told Eileen she wanted a cigarette. Me too, I chimed in. You smoke, Eileen asked my grandma, surprised. I'm 99% quit, my grandma told her. I enjoy this banter they have. It doesn't bother me, having the same conversation three times over soft chicken and strawberry ice-cream (no one wanted the pears for dessert, they never do).

There were moments in the meal that I felt a panic rising up, like I might start crying at the table. I always feel this way, slightly claustrophobic in the large room, this sadness that settles in when I look at her face. I push it down, but one day I'm afraid I won't be able to and I'll just start bawling in front of all of the blank faced old people.

I wheeled her and a friend of her's back to her room and reminded them over and over that no one was to try and get out of their wheel chairs. I put on The Young and the Restless and made sure the volume was correct. Okay, I said, turning to face both of them. Who's getting into bed?! No one, my grandma barked. Good job, I said, that was a test and you passed. Stay seated I said kindly but firmly.

A gentle kiss was planted upon her soft forehead and I left her to watch what the Newmans and the Abbotts were up to.

Sundowning

Sundowning, or sundown syndrome, is a common term used to refer to the agitation, anxiety and confusion that affects many Alzheimer's patients. It occurs later in the day and can continue into the night and even make sleeping difficult. My grandmother has not escaped this part of the disease. I try to keep my visits between ten a.m. and two p.m. Yesterday my visit, which included my mother and all three of my kids, began at four p.m. I knew this would not be easy.

I can remember the exact moment when I knew that my grandmother was in trouble. I remember the phone call when I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. When I hung up the phone and cried and called my mother. It was one night in February, almost a year and a half ago, when I had called my grandma and asked her what she had for dinner. It was a common question for us, talking about meals and what we had cooked or would cook the next day. This time when I asked her what she had for dinner she said she didn't know. I was confused how she didn't know, she always ate at five thirty. She then asked me what time it was and I told her seven. Seven at night or seven in the morning, she asked. I felt a real sinking feeling. It's night time gram, I told her, you must have dozed off in the chair. I made light of it with her and immediately called my mom when we hung up.

Summertime makes my weekly visits become every two week visits, which is why I had to squeeze in a visit with my kids in the afternoon. She was disturbed by the noise the kids made and she was afraid they could get hurt if they ran in the hallway. I wore a dress and put my hair up but she didn't seem to notice. She was intent, as she always is, on brushing the kids' hair. She wasn't able to locate her brush and that upset her. She didn't want to see the movie showing after dinner because she claimed she'd already seen it (even though she didn't actually know what movie was playing, she was certain she'd seen it).

I left the nursing home feeling a little sad and defeated. And guilty. I get frustrated when she doesn't behave the way I want her to. Some of the other residents who always sit by the nurses station, tucked into their wheel chairs in homemade sweaters, are sweet and always smile at me when I come in. They sit together. I want that for her, rather than passing the hours and days sitting in her room alone doing jig saw puzzles. But it's not for me to decide how she lives what's left of her life. All I can do is keep showing up. And love her. That's it.