33 DEGREES

the peak, whitehead

Up to 55 degrees today. Gradually the ice is going away from even the shaded places. Before I knew Jr I paid nearly no attention to temperature. I knew what range it was in. Big coat. Light coat. Light jacket. Heavy shirt. Tshirt. That was all I cared about. Forecasts I paid little attention to, not because I doubt them, I just don't care. The rhododendron tell me on sight out the window when I wake in the morning what the temperature is, whether there's been snow, rain or ice in the night.

At Jr's, I read the thermometer by the door when I'd go in or out, to tell him what the temperature was. He could tell close by looking, but liked to know the number. We'd watch tv weather sometimes, turn it on for the weather, then turn it off. In that span of time we'd get a dozen or more commercials. He spent his life working outdoors in whatever the temperature was. Indoors, he kept himself in touch with outdoors by knowing the temperature.

There came a time he was talking about getting a big thermometer to put on the porch that he could see from inside. Somewhere I'd heard about digital thermometers. I found one at Alleghany Electronics. It looked like a little television. Ran on 2 3A batteries. The transmitter that goes outside took 2 3A batteries too. At the house, I assembled all the parts to Jr's amazement. He couldn't quite make out what I was putting together even though I'd told him it was a thermometer. He needed to see it completed to get some idea of it, it being something he'd never heard of before. The little tv screen tells the temperature outside in tall letters and the indoor temperature in small letters.

He was amazed by it. At first he let me have it for spending money on him and wanted to know what it cost. I told him something like it was a late Christmas present. He thought it was nice, but couldn't see that it would be worth having. Like other things people brought and plopped down in front of him like it was something he wanted, when he didn't want it at all, he received it and wouldn't have it moved for anything. Like a little figurine of a dog with a $1 sticker from Family Dollar on the bottom.

It wasn't long before he was sitting watching the numbers change like it was a television with no commercials. His own personal weather channel. He watched it all day long. He'd sometimes tell me what the temperature reached in the day and what time that was. It gave him company in the house alone all day long every day. In a way, it became his friend. It held his attention like another presence in the house and made him feel not quite so alone. It enchanted his mind that didn't take in any entertainment. No television, no radio, no reading. He needed another being, not a substitute. I stopped by in the evening on the way home from the store for a couple hours. He had a couple of women he talked with on the phone every day, and with Ross a couple times a day on the phone. He sat and looked out the window like it was entertaining. I learned to see the window the same way.

Jr's entertainment was his mind working. He was always solving a problem of one sort or another. Always looking for solutions to puzzles. That's what made him a master mechanic. It's how he figured out the banjo. His mind was going all the time, and a fast mind it was. He waited on the couch like sitting on the bank of a pond fishing, waiting for a car to turn up the driveway or the phone to ring. Another of the thousands of reasons I could not allow Jr to tolerate despair in the lumberyard was he needed the presence of other people, not in a bed with people he doesn't know all around, but people who see him at home. Among other people was the world he lived in. He liked other people. He liked to feel connected with the other side of the window.

The evening of the day of the funeral, I told Ross I'd like to take the little tv thermometer for my memory of Jr. Hell yeah, don't ask. Now, I find I sit and look at it. It's beside me here on top of the computer box keeping me in touch with outside and with Jr. Every time I look at it, he's there. It brings back sitting there with it on the coffee table, watching the numbers change, guessing how high it will get in the day. It's 33.8F out there. And 74.1 here. When I was out in Kansas a couple weeks, I'd call him and ask him the temperature and tell him what it was out there. The numbers change all day and all night. This little tv set for numbers was the only thing I wanted out of his house, and the violet that Jean gave him. 33.3 now.

THEN AND NOW

deer been here

It's the first day of the new cycle according to the calendar, another round in the spiral through time, a Slinky of the mind that evidently runs out in a few years. Last year ran out yesterday, this year started today, adjoining days much alike in weather and temperature, not much difference. Same amount of snow on the ground. It's not melting from above, but from below. Temperature of the air seldom rises above 32, while the ground is not frozen and the bottom of footprints often touch a thin layer of slush. Now that the snow has shrunk it's easier to walk in. It's easy to drive in too. It has a dry crystalline quality that gives tires a little bit of grip and feet too. It's also so dry it doesn't manipulate well for snowballs or snow people.

I hear people talk about being glad 09 is over, it was a bad year, like that. I don't get it. For me, it was a great year. It was a year I was able to honor a friend I'd given my word I'd stay with him all the way. I never said, 'to the end,' because that didn't sound right. I said, I'm with him all the way, meaning to the end without saying it, and whatever it takes. It was a tremendous struggle with agencies determined to get him into a lumberyard for the old and useless, telling me I can't do it, not because they knew whether or not I could, because they were taking control and I was out. I don't think any of them ever gave thought to loyalty to a friend I'd given my word, and was there to do whatever I had to do, whatever it took.

What Jr and I went through in the last year is enough to bond us for lifetimes to come. There was a period of time it was an ongoing battle with these agencies that were determined to get me out of the picture and Jr under control in a facility. As long as I was living, it wasn't happening. A couple of times the dr put him in nursing home for physical therapy, but when his time was up, he was to go home, except the second one was determined not to let him go home.

That's when TJ had to go Xtreme and do what needed doing. I go about as the kind of guy that doesn't make waves, likes harmony, easy to get along with, for the most part. When Taurus the bull has had enough, nobody wants to make him tear down his pen to get at them. In a case like this, I was ready to go all the way, however far that was, as per my word to Jr. They were restricted by corporate rules and regulations, and I had none. I was in a place where only death could stop me, and I was willing to go that far. They went too far in their war against me and had to back off at a place where I was just getting started.

The Absentee Police, in hindsight a slapstick comedy, continued to harass, but were at a loss for what to do next, as Jr was signed out of the facility by his doctor and they couldn't do a thing about it. For a month, I was with him round the clock seeing I was going to have to hire someone to help out half a day or so a week to give me a little time. Also saw I didn't need the time and didn't want the time. Didn't like leaving him with someone who didn't know him well, or at all. I was there to keep his humanity intact, keep him able to make his own decisions for himself with help from someone he'd learned over a period of 7 years he could trust. What I wanted for him was someone he could trust. It wasn't only because I gave him my word as much as it was I meant it, the place where giving my word came from.

Scott Moncrief emailed me during the time I was considering what to do for help I'd need in near future. He'd been reading my indecision in a blog entry and suggested Hospice. I thought: Boing! Of course. A pinto bean to the head from God's slingshot. Thank you, Scott. I meant to email you my gratitude and it never got done. I'd think about it when driving, or generally away from the computer, then when I was doing emails, it didn't come up. That is commonplace here. It's not an exception. I've needed to write myself notes for a long time and haven't yet started. I'm so much like Jr in those kinds of ways, I'll never do it.

Along came Hospice. Angels sent from God. I'd see the car of one of the women from Hospice start up the driveway and it was the same as seeing an angel flying up the driveway like a human-sized white crow flapping big white wings. It was the same as letting an angel into the house and turning Jr over to her for celestial care. The next 3 months of assistance from Hospice were without a care where agency threats and Absentee Police machinations were concerned. It was a light-hearted time in that way. A serious stress lifted from me right away.

I felt like a samurai keeping the dogs off his dying friend. Finally, Jr was allowed to leave the body in his own bed, in his own home, in his own humanity. Thanks to all the people who have ever contributed money to Hospice, every organization, every grant. I knew about Hospice, but didn't know what they did. I thought it was to send somebody to be a friend while somebody's dying. No idea.

I didn't even feel it necessary to pray over Jr when his soul left the body. I sat beside him a little while and put my hand on top of his, which was still in the cooling down process with a little warm left in it. I did pray for him, of course, but didn't feel it was any need. I didn't need to call on God's attention. God was with us right there right then and knew better what was going on than I did, and better who he was receiving that I did. Perhaps I should start the new year looking ahead instead of back. Already, I know this coming year Jr will be in my mind a great deal of the time. I start the year a new me from last year's experience.

A CHRISTMAS STORY

white christmas

It's the night before Christmas when all kinds of things happen. We cheer about the pretty, and keep down the ugly, and everybody has their own feelings about it. I've never had any associations with Christmas that made me think of it as anything other than a good time. I'm glad of that too, because terrible things have happened to some people I know on Christmas or Christmas Eve that makes it a sorrow every time it comes around. Jr had the very worst blow of his life on Christmas Eve, 1945. He never recovered, but he picked himself up and kept on a-keepin on.

Jr had been married 5 years when his older half brother came to the house on Christmas eve wanting Jr to drive him to his in-laws house to see his second wife who was mad at (and afraid of) him and staying with her parents. He played fiddle, Jr played banjo, Jr's wife played guitar and sang. The three of them made a lot of music together, were close, knew each other well. Jr looked up to half brother like a shrub looking up at an oak. Jr's wife said, he's drunk, there will be trouble; if you go, I'm leaving you. I take that to mean voices were raised and an argument averted by Jr deciding to stay.

Half brother got another ride, went in the house, shot and killed wife, shot father-in-law 3 times, who survived, and cut up mother-in-law, who also survived. And the 4 month old baby survived. He went out to the front yard and shot himself in the head. Merry Christmas. That was the end of Jr's marriage. He was struck so deep in the heart by that blow, he left out of here and went to Wytheville first and drove a cab for awhile. From there he went to Toccoa, Georgia, for a construction job he'd heard about. From there to Decatur to work for AK Adams Construction Co. He started out pushing a wheelbarrow and was promoted to working a gang of 20-some black men. It was his first experience being around that many black people, and Jr came to like them. They liked him. He treated them right, like he always treated everybody right. He was never been one to be down on black people ever since. From there the company moved him to Decatur, Alabama.

In Alabama, he worked a crane that went 150 feet in the air, used for lifting materials to upper levels of high rises of the day. He liked the work, had a good future with the company, liked the people in Alabama, was thinking about staying there. He had a girlfriend who was a teller at the bank, whose last name was Maxwell. Dad started getting older and unable to carry on the farm work without Jr's help. Mom and dad needed him at home, and he came back. He'd never been certain after coming back that it was the right thing to do. But it was done, and Jr was a son with genuine filial piety. He never regretted returning, but often wondered about his life had he stayed in Alabama. There's no way Jr Maxwell could say no to his mother and dad's appeal. Also, he knew how his daddy was knocked down by the incident at least as much as Jr was. I suppose their shared grief bonded them with a permanent weld, which they already had.

Jr returned home broadened by his experience in the flatland and jumped into doing what he had to do to get by here in the late 1940s, when just working a farm wasn't enough anymore. When he was ready, he got in touch with Lois Lowe, who was working at a sewing factory, Hanes maybe. He'd known Lois before. They fit like hand and glove. Lois worked side by side with Jr all the way through their life together. He said she could work as good as a man. In my early years here, I worked with Jr and Lois putting up hay. She amazed me how she worked. When I was driving the tractor with the wagon behind loaded with hay, looking at the hill I had to drive the tractor down with a curve in the path and a gate to get through at the bottom of the hill. I assessed there's a fair chance I could make it, but there's also a fair chance I couldn't. I talked with Lois saying I don't have enough tractor experience to say I'm 100% certain I can do this without tipping the hay. She said she'd do it. She stepped onto the tractor and drove it down the hill while I watched in awe.

Through the years of sitting with Jr over our drams at his table, talking freely, openly about our lives, memories, what we believe and don't believe, talk, Christmas was never an issue. It's just another day, a day without much traffic on the highway. Everything shut down. We didn't do presents or cards. We were aware it was Christmas, because we couldn't turn the radio on for several weeks for all the Christmas music about shopping. Every Christmas he relived that night in his mind without wanting to. Myself, I don't have anything against Christmas, only that the gross commercialism of it is too much. In this time, there's no alternative but to let it go by and let other people max their credit cards and shop til they drop and watch football all day. My boycott of one again. At the table, we acknowledged Christmas with the first drink, glasses held up and we both said, Merry Christmas.

When I look at Jr now, remember much that I appreciate about him, and automatically think, I wish I'd paid more attention while he was living. But I can't say that, because I did pay attention. I'm grateful in myself that I had what it took to see the Jr Maxwell I only know of 2 other men who knew the Jr I knew. That's his lawyer, Jimmy Reeves, and his friend, Paul Reeves. I have appreciation for them because they see the same Jr I see. Jr had asked me more than once why each of them have to do with him. Of each of them my answer was, he respects you. That's when I get the look that says, you tell me the craziest damn shit I ever heard. I had a feeling that deep inside out of sight he saw it. He didn't understand it, but accepted it.

When Jean was with us, she would bring in little Christmassy things from Dollar General and put them around. She'd put up a little tree 2 feet high on the counter with lights on it and say to Jr, isn't that pretty. He'd agree. She would sometimes try to pep him up for Christmas, and he didn't have any of what it took to get excited about Christmas. He didn't have a problem with Christmas, itself, he couldn't get excited about it. It's just a day. We already know the story of Jesus and the manger well enough.

Jr was somebody who didn't need to be told something more than once. He asked me to drive him around to his mother and dad's graves in his last days of being able to get in the car and to walk about a little bit. At Liberty cemetery, we entered the gate and he went to his dad's grave, saw it, turned around and left. At this mother's grave in the Whitehead/Joines cemetery he saw the stone, her name, turned around and left.

I was thinking that's like a cat. We humans tend to believe we have to look at something for a long time to see it, to gaze at it, stare at it, stand over a grave. A cat sees something once and that's it. The cat knows it's there. When I saw Jr do that, I was thinking how real that is. When I visit a grave, I see it, then I stand there and keep on seeing it wondering why I'm doing this. I saw it. It's still there. Jr was that way with everything. When something is done it's done, time to get on with what's next. Dwelling on the unnecessary was never his way. That's one thing I saw in Jr I like to adopt in my own way of seeing. It's there with my favorite, stay away from important people.

IN A MINUTE THERE IS TIME

pollen circle

It's been on my mind a good bit today that I'm on the other side of the end of Jr's line. All the time with him I refused to anticipate when he might go out, or even think about what comes next. I felt like my role was to keep him comfortable in the present. He faded out and came back so many times, I could never assume that a downturn would not turn back up. I could never anticipate anything. When Jr's mind was gone, I wondered how much more he has to take. But I wouldn't indulge in thoughts of after. Everything has so many ways of changing, all at the same time, ongoing, I can't anticipate anything to do with the future, even by tracing patterns of repetition in the past. Not even that is a certainty.

It's a month past the dreaded day, and everything is different. Gradually, I'm setting myself in motion, getting projects going. When I came home I found the house was static, desperately needed help. It felt inside about like Jr's house must feel right now. The occupant gone. Nothing is going on. It's like the spirit in the house was asleep, or that's what I called it. It seemed to define the feeling best. I believe I can say with fair certainty that Jr never imagined a world without him. He never looked to what's next either. He wasn't in a hurry to find out. He was actually a bit resistant to finding out, because he liked it here. He had his troubles and sorrows, but that's not all there is. He also had some really good times and loved to work, worked into his late 70s, until he was unable to leave the house.

It wasn't denial on his part or mine. For Jr it was apprehension, I suspect, that God might turn out to be a hard-shell preacher and tell him, sorry, you drank too much, you've outrun the law, you've given in to temptation repeatedly, you've got a little too independent an air about you, and worst of all, you don't go to church. Bad Jr. Get onboard that long black train. It's a one-way trip to hell. But the God Jr really knows and the God I know is all about love. It's like I told him when he told me he wasn't sure which way he was going, Hell wouldn't have you. In my way of seeing, that's a certainty. Hell doesn't want somebody who tends to help others. Hell wants somebody who robs his mother's money she put by for her old age.

I never talked with Jr about heaven or hell, whether or not, any of that. In his way of thinking, as in mine, they don't matter now. What matters now is participating in the flow of life on earth. Jr never objected to living on this earth, like I often do. He thinks it's as good as it gets being a human on earth, a man with a complex life, a mind that keeps itself busy figuring things out. He learned by doing. He loved making music, the world of musicians, getting a good rhythm going and riding it picking the fire out of the banjo. Even in the last weeks when he was frailty itself, I knew the Jr within and he was still functioning. That was the Jr I talked to and listened to. When his mind dried up, the Jr I knew was still there, just locked in a cell without a mind.

I had never wanted to control him in any way, and don't believe I ever did. A few years ago I told him, "The only thing I want for you is what you want for yourself." He looked at me stunned-like, and said, Really? I don't think he'd ever heard of that. He had so many people around him controlling and manipulating him, and him knowing it, that somebody not looking to control him came as a surprise out of the blue. I always let him call his own shots. I never anticipated how he might answer any given question, or how he might respond to one thing or another. I couldn't. I knew that. When people would ask me something they wanted to ask him, but he was asleep or generally unable to respond, I had to make it clear I really do not know what his answer would be. I might think I have a pretty good idea what it would be, but I wouldn't count on it. I wanted him to have his own personal autonomy to the last breath.

I remember the time the niece below the mountain said she commends me, she knows how contrary he was. I said, He wasn't contrary at all. She was always and continually set on forcing him to do things he's not going to do. Like she thinks he should eat, though he says his stomach hurts and he can't eat, she fixes a big meal, puts it down before him and heckles him to eat. Finished, he'd get up, go to the bathroom, throw up and be in agony the rest of the day. I never put anything on him to do that he didn't want to do. I explained to him what his pills were for, individually, when he took them, never just saying do this, do that. I gave him a choice about everything. I wanted him to be able at least to make decisions in his own power, even though he didn't have the energy to stand up. Decisions got down to would you like a sip of water? But it was his decision, which I believed was at least as important as the water.

Looking back to the time of first suspicioning I was sent to Jr, then to get to know him better first, learn his language, you might say, preparing for the time I could help him retain his personal autonomy as long as he retains consciousness. It was his consciousness that was important to me. His consciousness is where Jr Maxwell really was, not in that banged up and broken old skeleton. I'll even go so far as to venture it was God's love for Jr that set up circumstances to call upon a devotee who appreciates people of the old ways, who was already disposed to like Jr, who could learn from Jr, because Jr was a learned man, not by books but by awareness, first hand experience. It tells me God trusted me with his dear one, and I'm as grateful for that as for anything else.

DRINKING WITH JR

cosmic chagall #6

Days turned into weeks as I stopped at Jr's on the way home from town. I saw Jr a man beat down in the ground. His primary issue it seemed to me was he was lonesome. He sat in the house by himself, didn't watch tv, didn't read, sat and looked out the window at the curve in Hwy 18 where Rifle Range Road enters the highway, waiting like a fisherman for a car or truck to turn up his driveway.

He watched the wind in the trees and the temperature. He watched the rabbits graze in his lawn, watched a spider in the window. He talked on the telephone and sat in neutral day after day. I came to see that his lonesomeness was a great contributor to his depression. I couldn't do anything about the depression, but I could stop by and be company for him; then he has at least one visitor a day. Telling me of his life, of his band, of people he has known throughout his life. I can listen to talk about life in the old ways in these mountains without end. I also found that Jr had been drinking himself to sleep night after night. When I had a couple drinks over a couple hours with him, that cured his loneliness for awhile. Consequently he drank less. His drinking had been on the verge of self-destructive. But Jr knows where that line is.

Everybody around him was getting in his face about his drinking. and I told him he drinks less than most lawyers, judges and doctors. Less. In the middle class drinking is not only acceptable, it's what people do. In the working class the Baptist church influence is everywhere. If you drink anything in the working class you're a drunk. One time his niece from below the mountain drove up the driveway. I put the bottle out of sight and my glass. He said he didn't care what she thought of him drinking. I said I don't either, I'm just not interested in hearing it. He put his glass out of sight before she came through the door.

Something else I noticed was this niece watched soap operas and made drama out of anything. Everything was down, couldn't get no worse, all the time. Moaning because it's all so awful. After she spent an hour or so with Jr, he was talking the same, nothin aint never right. Then Jean came into the picture and she was a practitioner of negative mind too. There came a time after seeing the affect it had on him that I set out to change the tone of the conversation at the table. As of one day I quit letting them get away with talking down, down, down, all the time.

The niece from below the mountain quit coming by, making it a lot easier for me. I wouldn't talk that way with Jean. No need to be groaning about everything that's wrong. It can carry you away. There really is so much that is wrong that it can occupy a lifetime figuring out everything that's wrong, and the magnitude of how wrong it is. There is also much that is right. Where I put my focus is where I go. The mind is so fluid, as fluid as air; it can flow with any kind of force coming in from outside oneself. Jean would be overtaken by negative mind rather easily, but it took less and less to bring her out of that downtrodden self-pity mind she would get into.

In the early weeks and months Jean came by more and more often. Sometimes she'd cook supper for all of us and I'd wash dishes.Jean had spent her adult life in and out of psychiatric institutions, psychoanalysis, powerful medications with deadly side effects. I was fascinated with Jean's knowledge of the workings of the mind. I learned later that she was curious about this guy that accepted who she is from the start, and didn't run when she said she was bi-polar. After a certain point, it was the 3 of us around the table every evening. Jean and I started coming by on Sunday mornings and Jean would make breakfast for all of us.

Stories from Jean's life came forward that were sometimes hair raising. I came to believe she went to mental institutions periodically to get a rest from her family. They were the crazy ones. Jean was of such a sensitive temperament and they were so boisterous and loud. Their whirlwind minds transferred to her easily as she was so sensitive, and there were times she couldn't take another moment. She'd "break down" and go away for months or years. She got the name for being crazy, called herself the crazy woman of Whitehead. Jean had a great deal of gratitude for Jr. He never abandoned her when everybody else did. His ear was always ready to hear whatever Jean had to say.

This went on for some years. Jean and I kept the lonesome blues out of Jr's house. He came creeping back, the Jr full of life, an open, friendly spirit. Sometimes on a weekend I'd show up at the house in the evening and he'd be wasted drunk. Been drinking all day. He was a happy drunk, and I am too, so there were never any harsh words or wise cracks or dramas. We laughed and told funny stories to laugh about. We decided on New Year's Eve to sit and talk and drink until midnight. We both got loose such that I was about to dissolve into a puddle of swamp water and Jr was lit up fairly good, too. We had hundreds of laughs. The more we drank the more we laughed. We cleared midnight like runners crossing the finish line. We were talking slow and laughing about all the time. When midnight finally struck, that was it. I went home and he went to bed.

STEAM

found heart

Leaves are falling out of the trees. The meadows are turning brown. The lawn is bright green. 2 crows walking in their independent meanderings peck for worms in and out of the 2 shades of green, the shadow of the house and the sunlight. One of the crows raised its head and walked along the edge of the shadow.

On waking this morning I already felt what I've been feeling ever since: burnt plumb out. It's something sleep doesn't cure. It's a kind of paralysis, unable to move without forcing it. Unable to take an interest. Feeling like I want to go out the door and never come back. Let somebody else handle it. Irrational thinking to be sure, and I know it. Thoughts and feelings run wide open buzzing like a dirt bike race. Exhausted from it. Even feeling resentment toward Jr for doing this to me. Again, like getting mad at the ocean.

What my more sensible mind knows is I committed to whatever when I promised Jr I'd stay with him all the way. I didn't say it idly. I said it believing I could take more than I actually can take. I've done that before and paid the price. This with Jr isn't like paying a price for committing beyond my abilities. Not at all. Like when I believed wiping him was where I drew the line, that line is way in the past to where wiping him is nothing to even notice.

I've reached a place that has been my limit heretofore. It doesn't mean I can't or won't transcend it. I will. I'll push the envelope of my own limitations. No threat of nervous breakdown with all the support around me. It's time now to start calling on the support. I called Melia this morning to ask her to stay with Jr and hour and a half today while I go to doctor appointment and grocery store to get some little cups of pudding and apple sauce to mix his medications in. He can't swallow the pills as of the last couple of days.

Judy from Hospice came this morning to clean him. Since the last couple days have brought changes that require new thinking and doing, she was telling me how to turn him over in the bed every few hours, mix his pills with pudding or something after crushing them. I didn't want to hear any of it. I wanted not to listen. I wanted to be the average man and just not hear it when a woman talks. I wanted to shut down. I wanted to go home and sleep in my bed and stay in the bed until it turned boring, which I imagined would be at least a few days.

I even found myself thinking I wish Jr would just let go, a thought I don't allow. But I don't like denial either, so I let myself think it. It's a thought I give no attention, because I don't mean it. It's just my frustrated, burned out mind dragging up all the self-centered ways of seeing everything. I'm even doubting my interpretations of the waves of joy and sorrow I feel so much of the time, thinking it has been stress all along and it's making me cuckoo. I tell myself it's about Jr, not about me. I see that if I'm going to go on keeping Jr, I have reached a place where I have to take care of me too or I might not be able to make it. Bullshit. I'll make it.

A lot of self-serving, self-doubt thinking and almost entirely irrational. It feels like the mind wanting to shut down. Again, I tend to see it as the transcendent place where I push the envelope of my own abilities.

I just now heard some stirrings. I went to see how Jr was doing. He was wanting to get up to pee. When he saw I was there to help him get up, he smiled with that look that says, It's you, the one that helps me. My heart melted and I knew what I'm doing writing this is letting off steam to keep the boiler from blowing, because I've no choice but to go through this and come out the other end. It's like the way Jr describes his life---God put this down in front of me for me to get through it. Jr too.

I helped him to the pottie chair. He'd already wet his diapers and the pad on the bed. No problem. Wet diaper in one of those plastic grocery store bags, tied and in the trash. Wet pad to washing machine. New clean pad in place on the bed. Not even a minute. Using a new kind of diaper I'm not comfortable with, but will have them learned soon. Something about that moment relieved some of my inner tension. What it did was pull me outside my head a moment to clarify perspective.

One of Jr's friends told me a few days ago I need to do this kind of work for pay. He said I'm good at it and would make good money. I had to tell him I couldn't do this for money, there's no money worth what I'm going through, and I don't ever aim to do it again. Jr just now asked me for some water. I jumped and was happy to get it for him, feeling returning to my heart. I keep little bottles of water in the refrigerator. Unscrewing the cap to one, I felt a welling up in the heart that stopped me, the dam holding back the tears about to break. I leaned my forehead on the edge of the kitchen sink and let a few tears fall to the floor, tears of the joy I feel serving the master.

Took him off the pottie chair and sat him on an open diaper on the bed and fidgeted around trying to get that thing fastened, then him comfortable. I wanted to get him closer to the center of the bed without pushing and pulling on him, went around to the other side and pulled the pad he was lying on and did it easily. I said, 'We done it.' He smiled his particularly Wiley Maxwell smile and went to clap his hands, but missed. Tried again and missed. Hands connected the third time and held each other as he lay back with a smile on his face. Again, he told me he couldn't make it without me, and my heart came back.

GITTIN ER DONE

composition in gray#12

At 8:30 this morning I woke, sat up and saw Jr's foot on the floor in his room. Oh shit, I thought, another one of them days. I sat there a moment getting myself used to it, clearing my mind of expectation. All I knew was he was on the floor. But anything could be the case. I got up and took a look. Worse than the least I'd hoped it could be. Much worse.

He'd pulled his diapers down and let go a load in the bed, tried to get up to go to the bathroom and slid down the side of the bed leaving a track like a snail, asleep on the floor with his head wedged into a small space just big enough for his head. It was bad. With one half of my mind cussing, the other half put together the plan of sequence of events for cleaning up. Leave him where he is until I get him cleaned enough to put him in the wheelchair where he can wait while I change the bed. First step, a bucket of warm water, 2 wash cloths, latex gloves.

I did what I had to do, exactly as I'd planned it. Hospice nurse's aide Judy was scheduled to stop today, so I called and asked if she could schedule Jr early in the day. She came right on out. Tuesday and Thursdays are the days she comes by to clean him head to foot. She has even shaved him while he was sleeping. She's good. She talks to him tenderly, knowing it relaxes him. A few times he has said to her, 'I'm ashamed,' meaning embarrassed. She explained she cleans 8 and 9 people a day, this is what she does. She's good at keeping him calm, relaxed in her care. He has come to know her by now, so it's more like a friend dropping by.

Taking the sheets off the bed and changing all the padding that protects the sheets and bed, stuffing them into the washing machine, setting it going, and back to putting new sheets on the bed. Jr was in the wheelchair watching what I was doing when Judy arrived. He felt so bad I could see it in his demeanor. Inside, I was feeling what I was feeling, sometimes huffing and puffing feeling mad. That kind of thinking makes me stop my mind and tell myself it's like getting mad at the ocean. There's no blame, no fault, and after all, I wasn't drafted.

He told of how he fell through the roof. It was thin plywood, like eighth-inch, and he fell through. His car was still on the roof. He was worried about the car being on the roof, how we'd get it down. Judy told him it is out in the parking space and the car is fine. That was the end of it.

From start to finish did not take a great deal of time. While she worked on Jr, I worked on the bed, so when she was finished, he could go straight to bed. When he was tucked in and we left the room, I told him I'd keep the cows out of the house. He said, OK. Judy looked at me funny. It's something I say to give him a little laugh. It started a few years ago when he was asking what I did while he was sleeping. I told him I kept the cows out of the house. He thought that was funny, so I say it from time to time to give him a smile.

A little bit later nephew Bill came by and friend Harold Hayes. He was fairly far away by then and couldn't open his eyes or participate. I spoke to him with hand on his shoulder telling him who was there. He muttered on his breath and drifted away. I brought both of them up to date on how he's getting along. At one point he apologized to me for being a bother. I told him he's not a bother, this is what I'm here for. Then realized I'd probably been telling Harold a bit of what happened earlier and Jr heard me and felt ashamed. I didn't feel too good about that. I remember his subconscious is still there and it's that part of Jr I connect with. I need to stop talking in his presence like he's not there, because he is, and it doesn't feel good to be talked about when you're helpless.

Mary from Hospice came by and sat with him so I could run to town for grocery store. That was a big help and she's a wonderful woman. I bought THE BIG ONE this time, the giant size laundry detergent. I've been running through the smaller ones, one a week. This one might last two weeks. I'm learning a lot of things women know these days, like laundry every day, cleaning up after other people. Seeing myself do these things I think about all that women know that men don't have a clue about. A thought ran through my head, more men need this experience. But I threw it out, because it's something I can't do anything about, but for myself. It reminded me of how grateful I am for this experience. The parts that make me cuss are good too, as it's just a way of easing frustration. Beats breaking dishes. And it's more fun.

In the afternoon I turned the telephone off and stretched out on the floor with a pillow and dozed in and out of sleep for 3 hours. My electrical system was cranked up so high it took quite awhile to drift out of consciousness, but that was OK. I just lay there to relax and follow the mind like watching clouds, just let it roll wherever it goes, at first hurried thinking that slowed down and slowed some more to the point I felt like I was about where Jr is, in a place that is not quite sleep, but unaware of everything, even thought, a zone of peace that still sees pictures in the mind, but thinks nothing of them.

JR'S SOUL

cosmic chagall #4



The fullness of what's going on in my heart today is such a complexity of feelings, it's like all possible feelings were stuffed into a blender and turned on HI. It's another cup runneth over day, and in its own way. It feels like I have terminal weariness. I want a nap, but the phone has rung so many times today from people wanting to know about Jr, and Hospice, I know I'll be woke if I don't turn off the phone, but I don't feel right about that today, because today felt crucial to be awake. A little bit ago I wet a washcloth with cold water and held it to my face. It felt like my whole face was crying, not just my eyes, like a waterfall of tears flowing down my entire face. I've never had such a feeling before.



It was every feeling there is to cause tears from highest joy to deepest sorrow and all in between. Why don't I sit down and cry? Because it hasn't happened yet. An hour or more ago Elvira Crouse came by to see Jr. They grew up together, same church, same school, near neighbors, and live now almost a half mile apart. She told me when they went to high school in Sparta there was no bus the first two years. They walked to Sparta and back together every day those two years, about 4 miles each way. To them, they're the same as brother and sister.



He was about as far gone in deep sleep as I've seen him when she went into the bedroom to see him. She leaned down and spoke gently into his ear, telling him who she was, talked to him, and he responded yes and no appropriately. He was hearing her and it was registering, only he wasn't able to respond. She talked to him like that quite a bit and I had to leave the room. Knowing that observers change things, I didn't want to interfere. I wanted them to have this moment to themselves, as it may likely be the last. That's the mental justification. What happened was I had to get out of there because my heart was overflowing and I had to have my space too.



At 5:30 this morning I woke and saw Jr sitting up in the wheelchair. The last 4 days not an ounce of energy to move with, refusing anything but a sip of water maybe twice a day. It likely took him an hour to get from the bed to the wheelchair, which was beside the bed, but it was a major effort. I got up and went to him, asked if he wanted on the pot. No. Bed? No. You want to sit in the chair? Yes. Of course, there was no way I could get back to sleep, so I sat looking at some newspapers Dean Richardson drops off for me every few days. I'd go ask Jr if he'd like pottie chair, bed or wheelchair. It was the chair every time. He just wanted to sit up, evidently.



At 8:05 I called the Hospice office pleading for help. Before the Hospice nurse arrived, Robin stopped in on her way home from work. She is a nurse in the Wilkes hospital. Jr was thirsty. He wasn't satisfied with the little sponges any more. I keep little bottles of water in the refrigerator. He drank about 16oz of water, about 4oz of applejuice, and 2/3 of a jug of ensure. I was in awe. Hospice nurse arrived and investigated vital signs, found his blood pressure a little low. We put him in the bed and he went to sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.



Robin and I sat at the table with coffee and talked a while. Bill Joines came along, one of Jr's musician friends, son of one of Jr's musician friends, good guitar picker and singer. He wanted to check in on how Jr is doing. Jr was so sound asleep he looked actually dead and it gave me a chill until I saw sign of breathing. Ross came up from the shop and we had good conversation all the way around, Bill and Ross talking about the cars Bill used to drive.



There was a period of time that the phone never rang and I talked with 4 different people. The phone has 'call waiting,' which I prefer to ignore, but now that Hospice is involved, I don't want to miss a chance that it might be from there. 4 in a row like that and not one from Hospice, all of them people wanting to hear how Jr is doing and offering whatever help I might need. All the conversations concerned how near Jr is, wanting to be advised of changes.



I'd called Elvira earlier, believing she might remember Jr getting saved and baptized. She couldn't recall. I told her he'd told me he was baptized in the baptizing hole by the bridge near the old Whitehead mill. She wanted to get in touch with Irene Wagoner to find out who might have the church records for 1935, thereabouts, to see when/if he joined the church at Liberty. She believed he'd joined the church; getting saved and baptized precede joining the church. It seemed they were excited about it, in that they were afraid Jr might not be saved, as he never went to church and went his own way his whole life. Elvira said Jr lived his life with compassion, treated everybody right and was always doing something to help somebody. This is becoming an important question now to Jr's closest friends. They ask me and I tell them what he said about the baptizing, and I always add that the light in Jr Maxwell's soul is so bright the darkness won't receive it.



I would, however, like to have some statistics to go by, like church records, if such can be found, and if he's there. I've come to know the Jr within that not many others know. He's told me things he doesn't tell around and doesn't care to have told around, his beliefs where God and integrity are concerned. To Jr, that is a subject he never talks about, because he doesn't believe it can be talked about. It's private to everyone. Jr is a man to pray in the closet, not in the street. He's never trusted people who wear religion on their sleeve. His inner life is no one else's business, only his own. I'd like to have something concrete to cite, because his friends asking are sincere and love Jr enough to want to be able to see him in heaven upon his departure from his earthly body. It's real in them and I respect it in them and hope I can find a document that verifies it. It will make an awful lot of people happy, and would be told all around. All of Whitehead will be happy to know Jr Maxwell is where their love for him wants him to be.




Not many months ago Jr said to me he didn't know if he was going to heaven or hell. All I could say was, hell wouldn't have you. He looked at me funny, trying to see in my eyes just how I meant that. I smiled lightly to let him know I meant it literally. Elvira gave me the word compassion today, a definition of Jr Maxwell in one word. Strangely, though I've seen it for years, the word compassion regarding Jr didn't come to me til today, from someone who knew him since they were babies.

SOAP OPERA DAZE

Jr on the phone

It's hard to tell what I'm feeling anymore. Two days of Jr's niece from down the mountain, a woman who watches soap operas all the time. The women I've knowN who watch soap operas make their lives into soap operas to the point that when you're in their presence, you're in the cast. There's no way out of it. Two full days in full soap opera and I was about to pack up and go home. We get along good, but I know I can never trust her in even the littlest way; therefore, I watched everything I said, trying never to say anything that can be twisted into drama. That gets old.

Plus, today, the girlfriend that calls multiple times a day wanting me to wake Jr so she can hear him make noises she can't understand, then hang up when he falls asleep with phone in hand and the thing starts beeping, telling me it's time to put it back on the cradle. Today I'd been through so much the last couple of days I needed a quiet day with just me and Jr in the house, no dramas, nor girlfriend calling. The third time she called I just let it ring about 25 times until it finally quit. Then she shows up in the car. When she saw him, she came to me and said, 'I didn't know he was this bad.' I said, 'You've seen him, and I've told you repeatedly.' She said, 'But I didn't believe you.'

That was it. From then on I only encouraged her to leave. She's a drama mama too and 2 of them together in succession was the limit of what I can take. Though, I had to remind myself she's not right, after she told me that was my sister she talked to day before. I told her it was not, my sister is in Kansas, told her who it was, but she continued to believe it was my sister. Whatever. It's my sister.

And last night niece below the mountains called me at home to tell me she wasn't comfortable with me leaving Jr alone. I told her I need 3 hours a day of my own to feed cats, etc., and it is on the condition I have those 3 hours that I am able to spend 21 at Jr's. I wait until he is off into dreamland and comfortable before I leave. It's not like I just go out the door when I feel like it. If she wants to come and sit with him while I go home for my 3 hours a day, please do, I'd love the assistance. I don't like him being alone either. Oh, she didn't want it that bad.

It just happened that it went all over me after days and weeks and months of all I've been through with Jr that these soap opera queens come in and start telling me their preferences. They can just perform their preferences and I'll be glad to let them do it. Oh no. They want me to. Oh no, I've got things worked out with Jr, me and Hospice, with a good flow and a good balance---I don't do what I'm told by people who drop in from time to time for 5 minutes and know everything there is to know about it. I'm friendly with both these women, would like to like them, but I don't care for made up drama in every day life. There's enough without making more.

I'd called Jr's friend Jerry earlier in the day leaving a message on answering machine I'd like him to see Jr, because it seems to be getting close and I'd like him to have a chance to see him while he's still here, if he wanted to. Jerry couldn't go in the house, afraid he was coming down with something he might have caught in the hospital, so we sat on the porch on a good 65 degree sun shining day. As we talked, I told him I've remembered what he said last time we talked, 'You don't know these people.' Told him I'd thought plenty about it, knowing his meaning, thanking him for the counsel. It reminded me that even though I think I know them, I really don't.

I told him of some people I know who came here from Savannah, got a raw deal from a particular realtor and they were mad. They wanted justice. I said, Wait a minute. You don't know where you are. Yes I do. No you don't. It's different here from where you came from, not better, not worse, just different, and you don't know what you're jumping into. Then I get some bluster of not being afraid and all like that. I said, You oughta be. I recommended they pipe down and let it rest. I knew Jerry was telling me the same thing I was telling them, and I knew there was truth in what Jerry said. Only difference, in my case it wasn't about being mad over getting swindled, it was about expectation.

Also with Jerry I was able to vent about the craziness over the last couple days. It's like a little tornado came through, stirred everything up and left. At least it left. Today I spent quietly, Jr sleeping or dreaming out loud in whispers some of the time. When he would come around a little bit I'd give him little sponges with cold water in them on sticks like tootsie pops water flavor, and then some sponges dipped in ensure. He was unable to do anything today but lie in the bed and sleep. All that drama energy wears him out too. He was happy to see her and have her there, and it was mostly the attention he gave her that wore him out. Paying attention wears him out in a hurry now. It's like his mind is set on drift. The mental whirlwind affected me more than it did him. He can't connect with mental any more.

It's felt like a mini-crisis for me, having these two women and a couple others coming at me out of the blue the last few days telling me to do things I already know don't work and have known for a long time don't work. Sometimes it gets into long lists of things I must do right now. All of them things I've thought about or tried long ago and they didn't work then, they'll certainly not work now. I've had to get with myself to remind me this is Jr, me and Hospice. I do what the Hospice nurses tell me to do and nobody else. They say I'm stubborn and they're right.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY

dance of autumn



It's unknown what happened to yesterday's entry. It didn't happen because the character in my mind that is me stepped through a door into what he thought was a room and it was a closet, but he closed the door and it locked. That's it, cat shit. On the phone with Carole this morning she said there was no entry today. I believed I'd written one. I went to the house while Jr was sleeping for a 30min round trip to see if it got stuck in drafts or some other place. Maybe I'd forgotten to click the publish button. There wasn't a trace of an entry anywhere, not even the recycle bin. All I can figure is I totally forgot, and I do mean totally.



Hospice volunteer Jane came by during the day to give me some time. I went home and watched INDOCHINE with Catherine Deneuve, a woman beautiful in the way only French women can be beautiful. I'd seen it several years ago when it was new and all I remembered was I loved it and would like to see it again. Vietnam before it became Vietnam, when it was a French colony, Indochina, when Saigon was the Paris of the East. It was a film so beautifully made in every way, it pulled me all the way into it, no thoughts of anything else. 2 1/2 hours of art from the archives of the most beautiful films ever made. Not that it's the only one, but it's among the very finest. Another in its league of a near perfect French film might be Nellie et Monsieur Arnaud. The 2 are only related in the feeling they leave behind in the heart.



I watched the film, entered some pictures from camera into computer, and came back here to Jr's. Hospice nurse came by and worked on Jr quite a bit. When I settled, I read in the Audacity of Hope. Evidently my tired mind associated that time at the house, feeding the cats, entering pictures into the computer, and the habits of what I do there like make a cup of tea, with writing the day's entry. When it came time to go to the house in the evening to make the entry, I sat here reading Obama with the same fascination as watching the film. I slept on the floor last night with only a pillow from the couch, none of the blankets I put down to lie on. Keeping the house at 8o there's no need for a blanket. It was just as comfortable as usual and no fuss. Toss the pillow back to the couch when I get up. May do that more often.



I've an idea that if I were to make a deep examination of what I'm feeling, it would most likely say tired, real tired. The kind of tired women know about. It's not that I do much or that I miss any sleep. I only miss naps for the telephone that rings every time I attempt one. Tired is what it is. The stress doesn't bother me much any more, but I also know I do feel it on some level. There is a longing to sleep on my own bed with one or more cats piled on. Also the weariness of continual concern for Jr's comfort. It might even be said I'm emotionally wrung out. Several times a day a tear glides down the side of my nose.



Harold Hayes, bass player for the Green Mountain Boys, came by with Betty, his wife. Both were moved to tears by what they saw. They stayed awhile, talking to him. Betty was so tender with him tears popped out of my eyes seeing it. She put her hand on the side of face and said to him, 'Jesus loves you, Jr.' I lost about a half a pint of tears over that one. She asked me how his soul was. I said his soul is fine. She was meaning has his soul been saved. I assured her it was. She was happy to hear it, like she cared about Jr so much she hoped he was headed upward, and now can relax that concern. I was thinking at the moment that I don't believe any kid who grew up at Liberty Baptist in Whitehead in the 1920s and 30s got out of there unsaved. I didn't think at the time to tell Betty he'd told me he was baptized in the Little River by the bridge, that is now the new bridge. The Little River Boys was the name of his first band. I'll tell her next time I see her about the baptism. Harold had a hard time. After awhile, he had to go outside and be by himself.



Earlier in the day, 9:30, Johnny Miller came by with his boy Walter, who is about my age. Johnny is now 80. Johnny is a bluegrass fiddler who played quite a lot with the Green Mountain Boys. He and Jr are friends as good as friends get. Johnny has a lot of first place ribbons and trophies from fiddlers conventions. Jr was sound asleep when they came in, but I knew he wanted waking with Johnny there. He'd raise hell with me if I didn't wake him when I told him later Johnny had been by. It took him a little while to come around, but we finally got it to him Johnny was here and he made the connection. He couldn't talk or anything. He wanted water, so I gave him the little sponges with water on them, several. Jr and Johnny weren't able to talk about anything like music making in the past or anything. Johnny talked to him some. He knew it was Johnny. I called Johnny yesterday and asked him to come see Jr because he's getting close and I knew Johnny would want to see him.



I told Johnny I have a cd of Ola Belle Reed recorded at Brandywine with him playing fiddle. He lit up remembering Ola Belle. He said his brother Sonny played banjo with her, which answered my question after seeing Sonny Miller named in the recently released cd of Ola Belle's radio shows, wondering if Johnny and Sonny were kin. He said he made an album with Ola Belle in 1972. I'll be looking for that now. I didn't have the Ola Belle recordings with me, but I had one from the Field Recorders Collective, the same place the Ola Belle came from, to show him what kind of thing it is. He looked at the picture on the cover and said, 'Why there's Dale Poe. And Wade Ward. And Charlie Higgins.' These were older master musicians in Grayson County when Johnny was coming along as a young fiddler.



My heart has been overflowing all day so far. I'm feeling tremendous love from all the people who love Jr. Being thanked in tears from the heart. I'm feeling weepy all morning today and into the afternoon. The 2 o'clock chickadee just sang on Jr's birdsong clock Joe Blum gave him. Since I've been writing this, tears have dropped off my cheeks to the floor in a steady stream. I feel like I felt at Tom Pruitt's funeral when the dam broke and I left a puddle of tears on the floor between my feet. Some of it might be sorrow, and some might be stress, but what it feels like is my heart with a love feeling in it bigger than the heart can hold. My cup runneth over. The love and gratitude I receive from Jr's friends is what it is. They fill me up with so much love it runs down my face in tears. They tell me, you're going to get a blessing. I don't know that anything can make me feel more blessed than all the loving feelings that have come to me from so many wonderful people, people who are my friends now.

WAITING FOR IT

cosmic chagall #3

In the night last night Jr called to me. He was barely able to speak. Actually unable to speak. He made attempts at words on breaths, not quite whispers. He took hold of the neck of his sweatshirt that was tight on his neck, because the shirt was pulled down in back. He said, knife. I found some good scissors and cut about 10" down the front to open it for him. Another time he called and woke me wanting to go pee. It was the old way of having to lift him from bed to wheelchair, wheelchair to pottie chair, pottie chair to wheelchair, wheelchair to bed.

This morning I found him crossways on the bed with legs hanging over the side. Barely conscious. I went to lift his legs to the bed and his face scrunched up like a raisin from the pain. I asked if he was comfortable with legs hanging over the edge. He said he was. OK. He lay on the bed all day like his soul was leaving he body, mouth hanging open, asleep most of he time. A couple of phone calls he couldn't function with.

Dean Richardson dropped in and I took him to show him Jr's condition. Later, John came in. John was deeply moved. Jr has always been a part of their lives. I don't know how close as friends, but he was always there, and John and Ross knew him since they were children and he was grown. I know that to a child in his world, Jr was the coolest one of all the adults.

I can see that for a child he would be somebody you'd look up to all your life.

Dean was telling me Jr was older than him in school by 7 years, so he was one of the big kids. He said Jr liked to put boxing gloves on the kids and teach them about boxing. Dean never wanted to box. I told him Jr picked up something from his attention on boxing when he was a kid. In boxing like a martial art, being able to take it is as important as giving it. Jr does know how to take it. He has taken enough to bring a rhino to its knees several times.

I've been on the verge of tears all day long. This morning I sat on the bed beside Jr and looked at him awhile, either asleep or far away, and my heart started welling up and eyes turning wet, feeling a tear creep down my cheek, knowing that if I let go it might go on a half hour to an hour. I didn't want to do that, so I got up and left the room thinking it probably would have been best to go ahead and bawl every bit of it out, yet at the same time, it felt artificial. It was self-conscious by then, determining whether or not to let it go took the spontaneity out of it, so I decided to save it for a time when it's more spontaneous, when I can't help but. It may be tomorrow.

Had to call Hospice nurse in the evening to ask her to come over. I'd called in the morning, but there didn't seem to be any urgency about it. He was comfortable, just different in that he couldn't move. That's all. I asked her to please come and look at him, because I'd been sitting with him all day in the same position, only moving a hand now and then. Breathing so shallow I couldn't see it. To tell if he was living I'd wait to see a finger or hand move. Today, seeing his profile on the pillow, I saw my grandpa Brink, my mother's dad, in his old age. I hadn't realized they favored each other so much. Similar noses and and face structure, as well as hair. It wasn't a perfect likeness, just enough to bring grandpa to mind. That made it all the sadder.

I went about the house today doing what I do, read, wash dishes, do laundry, feed the crows, with a heart running over, seeing Jr with not very much time left and really showing it, wanting to put my face on his shoulder and cry, but couldn't allow it, it would have been more than a shoulder could handle. Even now, a tear meanders down my cheek, one side, then the other. It's a welling up in the heart that overflows through the eyes.

I've been taking care of him because I believe his soul is valuable on the earth and valuable in my small world. I see it fading away like a candle down to the last bit of wax, the flame weakening and going on weakening until the tiniest little blue line around the top of the wick vanishes and a line of white smoke ascends.

Nurse came by, found he had a temperature of 100. She crushed a tylenol and mixed it with a teaspoon of apple juice, put it in a syringe and put it on his tongue a drop at a time, then with a sponge swab on the end of a stick like a smaller tootsie pop soaked with apple juice to get some moisture in his mouth despite being unwilling to drink something.

We pulled him around lengthwise on the bed using the pads under him to keep from having to handle him, which hurt. She got his temperature down to 98 before she left. She said his empty stomach helped the tylenol go to work fast. We covered him with a sheet and let him drift off to sleep again.

JR'S FRIENDS

the blue tractor #2

We're back to near lifelessness after a short burst of a few days of energy when Jr's plumbing was empty and had been empty. He slept all day today. Rose around 6. Major effort to get to pottie chair to pee. Major effort back to the bed. While he was still in the wheelchair, I sat on the side of the bed and said, 'Thought I'd have an ensure. Would you like one with me?' He thought about it a moment and accepted. This is the 3rd day in a row I've got him to drink an ensure by offering to drink one with him. Make it social, like having a drink of white liquor. Might be able to turn this into a comfortable habit, a drink of ensure together. If I'd just offered him one, he'd have declined.

Feeling uplifted today within. Not in a big way, but a nice way. Feeling support and gratitude from Jr's relatives and friends. It seems the buzzards have sailed away to someplace else, and all that's left are the ones that really care about Jr, himself, not the detritus of his life. I do, I feel uplifted within by all their support. I've been at it so long now with Jr, they all know I wasn't kidding at the start, that I've really been through it, and I'm not quitting until the last breath. I'm here for whatever it takes. Yesterday Jr apologized again for being a bother, wanting a sip of some water, but not wanting to bother me with asking me to get it. I told him this is why I'm with him. I want to fetch for him.

I use the time he gets up to go to the pottie chair to straighten up his bed, put the pads under his midsection back in order, the sheets and blanket ready to receive him when he returns. I know how he likes his pillows, so I set up the bed to receive him as he naturally falls into it. Today I put eyedrops in his eyes. They're about stuck shut from dehydration, needing some lubrication to get them open. Plus, they're closed so much now, open is an unusual state for them.

Ross told me today that Jr told him yesterday when I left the house to go to town that I only let him have an ensure a day for 9 days and wouldn't let him have any water for four days. Ross was appalled he'd say such a thing. I just laughed. It's like the time he told me Ross was keeping his money and not letting him have any. He didn't know what he was going to do. He didn't have any money and Ross wouldn't let him have any. I knew better, of course. I told him Ross is not ripping him off, that Ross is being honest with his money, and he can have any amount he wants just by saying so. I told him he has nothing to worry about. He smiled and said, 'I have to think about something.' Seems like his mind is a meandering creek. No telling where it's going at any given moment. Sounds like my own.

Yesterday he told me he wanted to go home. That alarms me when he says that, it being such a metaphor for Heavenly Home, but I've found he has never yet meant it like that. He thought he was in a hospital room. I said, This is your home. It is? This is your bed. It is? He looks all around the room and it's like nothing looks familiar to him. Like when he was in the nursing homes, when he wanted to go home, he wanted to go back to the house where he lives, that home.

We haven't had any conversations about dying. It seems artificial to me to bring up the subject, when it's so obvious. I don't see that he needs any religious or spiritual talking to. The artificial doesn't work with him. Jr has a firm spiritual foundation and has never been one to give his life over the the restrictions church membership requires. He is not, by nature, a sheep. If you insist he's a sheep, then he's the black sheep, like me. Jr is not one to have somebody else make his decisions. He likes to make his own. He's ready. But he's in no hurry.

Today while holding him up from the wheelchair so he could twist around to sit on the bed, get him situated, he says, 'Turn me loose,' and sits on the side of the bed. I was looking at his face up close in the half light, noting how he had developed the look of old, old age, that old age that is just old. It seems odd to see Jr Maxwell in such a state. He's been knocked down plenty, but he always gets back up.

I'm glad that the song I picked for the theme song of the radio show, a kind of seeing-what-happens picking on bluegrass banjo of Billy In The Lowground by Jr, has him laughing at the very start. He laughs and starts picking. He hasn't been able to laugh like that it awhile, maybe 3 or 5 years. When I start the show every Saturday morning, it gives me a kick to hear Jr laugh again, then lay it to it on his banjer.

Back to Jr's friends and relatives. They've been receiving me lately as one of them. I knew about all of them before, and some were suspicious in the beginning that I might be another taker on the scene. By now they see my motivation is the same as theirs, caring for Jr. I'm the only one with plenty of time to spend with him, when all the others have family and work. Seems to me it's only natural that I be the one that stays with him. The support I have is phenomenal from all directions. I tell you more about the Hospice support, but the support of Jr's friends and relatives is the equal of it. For anything, all I have to do is get on the phone and ask.

But I have the same disease Jr has, can't allow myself to trouble somebody unless it's really necessary. Also, I believe necessary is the only reason to make a call for help from one of them. That way I'm never crying wolf. What I've found is the people who are Jr's friends and relatives have become my friends for life, people I can always count on, who can always count on me. I've had to make a few calls. Not only do I appreciate all the support, I really like all the people concerned, more as time goes by. Caught myself dripping a tear today thinking about them.

BETWEEN INSIDE AND OUT

the door

The only thing I can say today is I don't understand anything. Of course, that's a given, but I don't always believe I don't understand anything. Today I believe it. Hospice nurse told me this morning the cells and the blood are feeding the body now. Jr's eating himself. And surviving. I told her I'd formerly believed what I'd always been told so much it's common knowledge that after 3 days without water you die. He's not dead. He's up walking around with the walker, something he's not done in quite a long time, and today I watched him walk about 6 feet without any aid.

He talks clearly with a seemingly clear head. It's like he's coming back to life. I think of him as the Cat Came Back, a funny old-time song about somebody trying to get rid of a cat. Thought he was a gonner, but the cat came back. I especially like Wade Mainer's recording of it. Some call Jr the Come Back Kid. 3 times before now he's been at death's door looking in, and came back. Now he has absolutely no nutrition inside his body and he's more clear than before, can get up and walk around, understand what is said, even recognize people who come to see him.

He sleeps better than he did before too. He quit taking any pills for 2 days, felt no pain, slept well and came to life. Today he was blaming the medications for his decline. Interesting analysis, but I tend not to go along with it, which is meaningless, because he has always, to my knowledge, known his own body and feelings better than anyone else does. I don't even try to figure out what might be wrong with him any more. He tells me and he's right. He's right in that pain medications block his intestines and he needs laxatives regularly to keep the plumbing flowing.

Yesterday he ate half a Burger King Spicy Chicken and drank a sip of water. Today he had a few ounces of apple juice and a little candy bar kind of thing for the hospice women who came to clean him and check out his vitals, which are always in perfect balance. I quit expecting where Jr is concerned long ago, so I go about the day expecting nothing from one minute to the next. Whatever happens is what happens, and it's always a surprise.

I called one of his friends, who grew up on the next farm and walked to the same school together, yesterday to alert him to Jr's condition and to give him a chance to talk with him. Jr was particularly lucid yesterday and I wanted Joe to have a chance to maybe have his last conversation with his lifelong friend. Fiddler Johnny Miller I mean to call too. Johnny needs to know. At the same time, I don't know what to tell them when we talk. I told Joe he'd been 4 days without water or anything, and 9 days before that with only an ensure a day. He's still living and clear in the head, can walk with the walker again.

I can't get emotionally worked up over any of it. Any way you look at it, I'm prepared for an any minute demise, though the nurse told me this can go on for weeks, the process of the body eating itself. It seems like a crazier'n hell way to me to leave the body, but I reckon it's his choice. He might not call it his choice, but nobody else is doing it to him.

All day today I've been in a bewildered state between one pole and another, not even wondering what's going on. It's more like awe that Jr has shut down, ought to be dead, and is up and about like he was months ago. The mental clarity is what gets me. Every day I sit and talk with him for awhile. Today he was sharp as he used to be. He talks about being lazy, sorry, all he can do is sleep. I tell him to sleep as much as he wants to. He's sleeping now like he never did before, and without the pills to help him sleep. Of course, when he's sleeping good the phone rings. Every day.

I can't have a nap for the phone. Every time I fall asleep, the phone rings. There are times I'd like to unplug it. Only problem is, sometimes it's hospice nurse, and I want to always be open for those calls. Back to expectation. I don't expect to have a full nap without the phone ringing anymore. I do feel strongly that the teaching I'm getting at this place on my spiritual path is about expectation. I find I approach everything better without expectation, like when I walk into Jr's house. Whatever I go into now, I tell myself, no expectation. Receive it for what it is.

I was talking on the phone with a friend a couple days ago I've not seen since I've been staying at Jr's. We usually have lunch once a week and air our thoughts of the week. I mentioned I was enjoying Obama's Audacity of Hope (I love the title--2/3 of the reason I'm reading it), and he said, 'I already have 2 things against him. He didn't receive the Dalai Lama. He gave in to China.' I didn't have anything to say. I'd prefer China leave Tibet alone too, but it's not happening any time soon. China takes Tibet to be a province of China. They have the army to enforce it. I also believe there's more to it spiritually than meets the eye. Like it took what Nazis did to Jews to create Israel.

Tibetan Buddhism is a potent religion. I tend to believe God saw it was time for all that energy balled up in the monasteries of Lhasa and the rest of Tibet to spread out all over the world like dandelion seeds with parachutes. Emory University in Atlanta has taken in the Dalai Lama and gives support to a Tibetan monastery in northern Georgia. All up and down the West Coast Tibetan lamas have landed as well as throughout our country and Europe.

I hate it that China is so belligerent about Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama, but that's China's problem. They're the ones that will pay. Running the Tibetans off their homeland is not a crime without a penalty. I trust divine justice will work there as it does everywhere else. I don't see any point in provoking China with a forced few minutes of hi-how-ya-doin and a photo op. That the Dalai Lama has a place in Atlanta is good enough. No need to get China excited over a mere photo op. They have their own concerns. Like Steven Seagal says, 'Ya gotta admit, God has a strange sense of humor.'

I keep on wondering what God has in mind for Jr. Like what did God have in mind for Job? I know God doesn't dislike Jr enough to put him through all the agony he's suffered in his life. I can't help but have a feeling Jr is a veiled advanced soul who chose to experience suffering this lifetime for the fast lane on his path. I'm honored to know the man.

THE LAST DAYS

bovine fashion statement

Today was the day I felt was the last day to get in touch with Agnes Joines to say it doesn't look like I'll be able to participate in the Hillbilly Show this year. Practice is Friday night and the show Saturday night. I want to be a part of it, because I love it, but no matter what happens with Jr between now and then, I can't go. I'll watch the movie.

Today is the 4th day in a row Jr has had nothing to eat and nothing to drink. 9 days before that he had only an ensure a day. I'd always heard that we can only live 3 days without water. Maybe Jr is setting a Guinness world record on how long he can make it without water or anything. His external reasoning is, if he drinks something he'll have to pee. If he eats something he'll have to shit. And he doesn't want to do either one any more. This morning he said his mouth was dry. I suggested merely a sip of apple juice to wet his mouth. No, it'll go right through me. Water? No. Ensure? No.

Several days ago I did a little barking to hear my head roar, to at least attest to myself that I made an attempt to get something in him. Yesterday and the day before, when I offered him an ensure, he said, 'What's the use?' Meaning he knows he's dying, there's no turning around, so why hang on. If his heart won't stop of its own, he'll help it along by taking nothing in to keep the body going.

Some of my friends are asking how I'm doing, got to think about myself. I'm doing fine. Because I'm not thinking about myself. After last week's stress peak, I've settled considerably. When I feel the stress now, it's over as soon as I get solved whatever caused it. Like last night I woke in the night to him calling me. He'd set out to walk to the bathroom with the walker. He went to the floor and sat there for some time, he said an hour (a period of time longer than a Southern minute that can be any amount of time). I lifted him up to the walker and let him shuffle back to the bed as I held him by the ribs. When he was settled back in bed, I went back to sleep easily.

I'm really not having a hard time. Once in awhile I get frustrated, but that's everyday life. This doesn't mean I'm in denial about Jr's any day demise. I don't see any need to dwell on that yet. My role is to keep him comfortable and in good spirit. That keeps me comfortable and in good spirit. A candle burning keeps the air clear--I don't know how that works, but it does. I've kept one burning in his room the last several days, initially to keep the chamber pot odor down, but find as a benefit it somehow clarifies the air. Reading helps a lot, talking every day on the phone with my friend Carole helps even more.

Support offered by my friends and others means as much in intent as action. Writing the blog helps in that it's become for this period of time something of a journal. I'm journaling. Another one of those good new verbs like googling. Blogging, another of the new verbs, keeps me grounded.

I'm so used to it in his place that I am at home there as much as at my house with the cats. I do miss the cats. No question about that. And they miss me, but I see them daily and they don't go hungry. Curiously, 4 times now, I've woke in the night believing TarBaby was beside me. The gesture of my hand reaching to touch him wakes me and he's not there. Strange feeling. His presence was strong in my sleep. Also, in the dream of his presence, I'm in my own bed at home. When I wake, I'm on the floor in Jr's living room. It takes a second for it to register what's happening. If I were a cat, I'd shake my head til my ears buzzed like hummingbird wings.

It's a time of waiting, for all of us concerned. The nurses know it, I know it, everyone around Jr knows it, Jr knows it. Ross is already starting to show the stress of his fear of life after Jr. It's not an easy time. My inclination for prayer is to lift his spirit from the body and love him for eternity. I'd actually like to see his response when the light comes for him.

I won't ask for it, though, because I don't know what I'd be asking for. I'm happy to have had the opportunity to help Jr Maxwell be able to drift away in his own home, in his own bed, in his own time.

SHUTTING DOWN

riflerange road 12oct09

I won't be a prophet and make a prediction. I'll tell you what I have to go by. Jr has not eaten a bite of any kind of food in 9 days. He had 1 ensure each of those days, and for the last 3 days refuses ensures. Had a little apple juice yesterday and a little today with a sugar cookie. Today he was up walking around with the walker. Yesterday and the day before when I offered him an ensure he'd say there's no point in it. I get the impression he is shutting down.

Saturday morning when I left the house for 2 hours to do the radio show, I left him in the bed, as is always the case every week. He is in the bed when I get back and all is well. This time I returned to an ambulance backed up to the front door. Ross's car was there. This is what I mean when I say I never go in the house with expectations. Always a surprise. It turns out girlfriend called while I was gone and he didn't hear the phone. So she called 911. When I arrived at the house they were saying his vital signs are all right, there's nothing wrong. When Ross told me what happened I had to let go a stream of mild cussing, the language I learned from my grandpa.

Then Sunday his rectal area was in severe pain. He kept on digging at it telling me he's constipated and I tell him it's impossible. His pain was so intense and so relentless I called Hospice and the weekend nurse on duty came out and gave him a mineral oil enema; out popped the plug and he was all right and has been ever since. He still won't take anything in. Both yesterday and the day before when he said What's the point, he also said he was dying. He sees he's not coming back from this one, so I think he's shutting down. Yesterday he said, Everybody else does it. Resigning himself to the inconceivable.

All of us around him are being prepared daily for him to slip away. None of us want it to be, but he's at a place now where sooner is better. We all dislike seeing him suffer as he does, though I'm the one seeing it most, so I dislike seeing it most of all. All I can do is pet him like a baby and pay attention to his every move and movement. The way he's starving himself, it looks like it can't be long. I see it a legitimate decision on his part. At a certain point, a man has to let go.

I often remember the scene at the end of the Dustin Hoffman movie, Little Big Man, the Indian elder goes to the mountain to lay down and die. He stretches out on the ground, lies there awhile, then raindrops start hitting his face and clothes. He opens his eyes, gets up, takes off walking slowly down the mountain saying, 'The old lady cooks a pretty good dog.'

There were times in the past I could not picture Jr a feeble old man. It didn't fit as a possibility. Now it's hard to picture him like he was 5 years ago, alert and just beginning to slow down. I didn't foresee Jr's mind slipping away. It was such a strange thing to see happen. In one week. It just drained. Since he has lost so much control, and since I'm with him every day and see the changes step by step, I can fairly well translate his meaning when he says something now from the subconscious.

Yesterday, sitting in his wheelchair, head hanging down, weak, ready to get back in the bed, he said, like to the air, 'I am a myth.' I didn't have any idea what to do with that. Myth is not a word he would use. Too abstract. Jr doesn't speak or think in abstractions. I can only think he said something else and it sounded like myth. It wouldn't do to ask him what he said, because he wouldn't know. Unless he might have meant myth by it's popular meaning, which would be his, a lie. I can see him saying he is a lie. He doesn't mind lying to maintain his privacy.

Somebody asking questions too close to home gets told what he wants them to believe. I think the lies told to keep one's privacy are white lies, therefore ok. Lying is as natural to humans as talking. I've seen dogs lie. Its basic in us. Jr is one you don't ever ask personal questions. He will never answer one. I've always known him to offer to tell a lot of the memorable moments of his life of every variety, openly, but if I ask a question, that's the end of it.

Curiously, I've caught myself doing the same thing. Something else I've picked up from him is, Lord Have Mercy. I say it probably a hundred or more times a day now. It's like a little prayer. Lord Have Mercy. Subtle different ways of saying it carry subtle different meanings. Like if you're at a pro baseball game and some guy takes off his clothes and runs across the field, you say, Lord Have Mercy, meaning this poor fellow is too dumb to take care of himself in this world, have mercy on him, his ignorance is the same as innocence. It's an expression of awe, like seeing Agnes Joines at the Hillbilly Show mimicking the Blues Brothers, Lord Have Mercy. This time it's not in the face of painful ignorance, but painful hilarity. Like when I step into Jr's room after he's been up in the night a few hours going through things, Lord Have Mercy.

It's one of those good ones that fits so many circumstances, like the word whatever. Sometimes if I get frustrated by Jr refusing to eat, I'll say, Whatever. The frustration cranked up a notch turns to Lord Have Mercy.

It doesn't feel right saying things in frustration. I want to be able to understand the innocence behind everything he does so I don't go about huffing and puffing when he gets me going.

I'm thinking now of calling his friends that live elsewhere to give them a tip that the time is drawing nigh. I can't see him lasting more than a few more days. He's not going to start drinking the ensures. I don't see him doing anything, just shutting down and waiting.