An Old-School Ladder Over the Wall of Deafness

Necessity’s son, invention, has a lesser-known brother. Around the house, they call him Re, but his full name is Reinvention. He quietly specializes in finding the remaining use in things thought to be defunct.

This is not how I do it, but this is how it feels.

My parents, ages 90 (my Dad) and 87, now live in a nursing home near Milwaukee. My brother lives within 10 minutes; it’s a good situation for them, no matter how much my Mom complains about the food. They apologized for not coming to Florida to be near us instead, but they said they had no idea how long we’d be here. Indeed, we threatened to move back to Pennsylvania once, and another time my company talked about moving me to Seattle. Neither happened, but I could understand their concerns. No apologies were necessary.

But a gulf wider than 1,200 miles opened between us recently. Both my parents are losing their hearing; my Dad’s is almost entirely gone. Hearing aids, as anyone with elderly parents knows, are an inexact science. Where phones are concerned, their utility can be even more questionable. The upshot is a lot of “WHAT?” and “Speak right into the phone!” from their end and top-of-my-lungs, louder-than-a-ballgame yelling on mine. In the end, frustration closed the line. They couldn’t hear; I couldn’t make myself heard…so we just stopped talking.

I missed their voices. But what to do?

Simple. Go back to the old way. Yes, I began to write letters.

No, they aren’t quill-pen musings in my flowing longhand. Rather, they’re 16-point Times New Roman spread over as many as six pages, with photos interspersed. Naturally, they’re very grandchild-centric; my folks want to know all about what my 13-year-old son is up to. But they’re also downright prosaic, even bland, full of talk about the interminable winter up there and a nice pot roast I made last Sunday.

And why not? It’s the look into the daily normalcy that reconnects my parents with my life, even as theirs declines. My Dad did get me on the phone the other night, his land line (cell phones are impossible), and we were able to converse enough for him to thank me for the letters.

“Your mother has been down to my room to read the last one at least twice already,” he said in his old, but still firm, baritone.

I smiled.

“Don’t worry, Dad. I’m gonna keep ’em coming.”

Our connection, reinvented.

© 2014 Adam Barr

Lighthouses, Navigation, and Family Rituals

I grew up inland, but I have spent some time on the water, like many, in everything from canoes to cruise ships. If fear were a liquid in a spray bottle, the unexpected list of a boat would be like a quick shpritz. Most times I can talk myself intellectually out of what my soul fears spiritually. (Other times, such as when I am learning to row an unstable single scull, I just flop into the drink.)

When people who have been around boats all their lives have bad dreams, does the nightmare scenario involve choppy seas, night fog, and an invisible leeward shore? The rocks are there, and you can hear surf…but how far?

My unsettled dreams can be like that, even in my thoroughly inland life. During the week, the nightmare metaphor can pop up, laden with symbolism about the uncertainty of what will be, where to go, what to do, when and whom to trust…and on and on.

Where are the lighthouses? One beacon would do the trick, orient us, keep us on course.

Families build lighthouses, day by day and year by year. Without even knowing they are doing it, families raise tall towers that look out over life’s waves and throw a powerful light, a confident Fresnel to whoever might need it.

One of ours: Saturdays, my son and I both have rowing activities. He has on-the-water practice; I have a land workout (weights, stretches, endurance, core work, all with my boat’s crew). After, we come home, where my wife delights in making the best scrambled egg burritos you will ever have. She has a technique, about which she is intentionally vague, that fluffs up the eggs remarkably. Their heat melts the shredded cheese inside the flour tortillas, and we slather on sour cream, medium salsa, and Cholula hot sauce. We top it all off with sliced oranges or fresh strawberries.

And for 20 minutes, we are together, laughing, going over what happened at practice, talking about the week or the weekend. No matter what else Saturday brings, we have that. And we look forward to it all week.

It’s a beacon. Fortunately, my shoreline is dotted with them.

© 2014 Adam Barr

Families: Aging, Moving, and Moving On

You can layer as much brightness and cheeriness as you want onto the bones of the situation. Big windows, decent carpet, solid furniture. A copious bird cage is nice; pretty finches play inside for the entertainment of the residents and guests.

Surroundings are clean. There are neither acrid nor antiseptic smells. Only a too-loud TV (too loud for guests, at least) disturbs the peace. The staff is upbeat and professional. The grounds are safe.

But it remains a nursing home. It is a place few choose to go, whatever efforts may be made to assure comfort. Residents in wheelchairs stare at the floor, and you can sense the loneliness and regret like ancient woodsmoke.

I have visited my parents’ nursing home in Pittsburgh for the last time. I helped them pack to move to a new one in Milwaukee, nearer my brother. Now they will be within seven minutes of him instead of both of us being hours away. My brother plans to stay in Wisconsin; I can’t say for sure how long my family will stay in Florida. So Milwaukee it is.

“How did we end up like this?” my mother has moaned, more than once, usually to cap off a gusher of complaints about the food, the staff, something else about the nursing home they are leaving. (She’s right about the food, but not the staff.) Her galloping memory problems unsettle her moment by moment. My Dad, sharp mentally but confined to a wheelchair, desires and frets only for her happiness. Hence this move, expertly orchestrated by my brother. We’re not sure it will be better, but it won’t be worse. The closeness to my brother (and his two grandchildren in Minneapolis) should be reward enough.

My friends and I have reached the age of dealing with parental decline. Even old high school classmates, friends only in the Facebook sense, commiserate with me about the heart-wrenching changes we see, their effect intensified by the real fear that the same may happen to us. What are we doing? Is it right? Shouldn’t we do more? What if we can’t?

But…could you ever do enough? If you tripled the time, the money, the effort…praise God, the patience…would it ever feel like enough? If it did, perhaps there would be a horizon to your love. And that is more fearsome than any other shortcoming.

Quantity of effort is certainly important, but quality more so. In this day and age, did your parents really give you life just to keep accounts? With some generational debt in mind? Not likely. They would fade like a mist, and gladly, if they could be assured that doing so would buy you a fulfilling life.

And so you want to help them all the more. But never keep tabs on yourself. There is no enough, and yet whatever you do is enough. Your heart will report back to you on the purity of your effort. Just keep making it.♦

©2013 Adam Barr

Aging: Fleeing From the Seven-Chamber Box

My generation has reached the age of aging parents. Nothing gets you thinking about your own impending old age more quickly, or more morosely, than watching your parents age. Even those blessed with healthy, lucky parents must witness the loss of strength, the mental crumbling; even parents in excellent physical condition through habit testify to the deterioration, however slow, of all sorts of faculties.

So we make the best of it, give care where and when we can, and face the future bravely. I have written in this space from time to time about my own parents, ages 89 (Dad) and 86. They live in a nursing home, in rooms across the hall from each other. They know that at this age, they are very fortunate to have each other. They have their share of medical problems. I will not detail them here, except to say that my Dad is in a wheelchair. He is not happy about this, but he is stoic. The combined effects of all their medical problems over the past few years made them unable to care for themselves and look after their own home — first, a house, and then, a condominium apartment. So they are in a nursing home.

They do not like it. But they never accused my brother or me of forcing them into this situation; they never begged us tearfully to get them out. They know that their cavalier attitude toward exercise and diet in their younger years may have hastened their dotage, but there’s no point talking about that. My Dad has had some bad luck with hip replacements. But his mind is good; my Mom’s too, except for some memory issues. They aren’t sick. They don’t have ominous family histories.

What they have is drugs. Medicines. Pills. Lots of them.

Based on the anecdotal evidence I have been able to gather, my parents’ case is typical. They each take a daily arsenal of pills which, if they really were weapons, would fuel a pretty formidable firefight against any invading malady. Blood pressure, stool softener, painkillers, you name it. They take it. Each has a box about six or seven inches long that is divided into seven lidded sections, M-T-W-TH-F-SA-SU. Every day, so as not to forget anything. Each “day” is packed.

I have made a concerted effort to take better care of myself in the hopes that I can stay mobile and sentient as long as possible. Already I’m doing things at 52 that my Dad had long since given up by that age. But what I fear most about aging is not the aches, pains, and deterioration. That ship has left the dock, and some time ago; arthritis is something I have to control through movement and attitude. No, what sobers me most is the idea that like so many elder Americans, I could become a human Dumpster for a daily handful of prescription drugs.

When did this particular boat tip over its keel? When did the therapeutic use of drugs to mend small but chronic problems morph into wall-to-wall Rx madness? And madness it seems, from this angle: before all these drugs, as recently as, say, 1950….how did anyone make it past age 60? And I have seen more than enough seniors moving through their remaining days in a chemical haze, a sight newly heartbreaking every time I have to look at it. Is swallowing a daily dose of medicine — So. Much. Medicine. — necessary to continue a happy, pain-free life?

It strains credulity to believe so. It’s popular to blame the prevalence of prescription drug use (one study says as many as 70 percent of all Americans take at least one; half take two or more) on the economic power of the pharmaceutical companies and their chumminess with doctors. Likely there is some truth in this. But the same companies also make products that are truly needed, that keep people alive.

Case in point: like my parents, I have mild high blood pressure. After much work to get it down naturally, I had to agree with my very conservative physician that I should take a drug to control it. I now take 10 mg per day of Benazepril, and it works. No side effects.

But it was a fight, a huge mental fight, for me to accept this. To me, it looked like the rim of a slippery slope. I once started Lipitor and got so scared that this was the beginning of a rest-of-my-life pillapalooza that I just quit, threw the pills out, started watching my diet and exercising…and the damned cholesterol came down. The blood pressure is another matter. Although it would be nice to quit the pills, I don’t have my hopes up.

But will that pill be the only one? Can I unslip the slope? That remains to be seen. Medical sense said I had to let one pill in. Overall sense still tells me to resist the next and find the natural way. If I can help it, I will not be trapped in the seven-chamber box.♦

© 2013 Adam Barr

Commencement Speeches, Translated

‘Tis the season. Notables don cap, gown and sash, accept an honorary degree, and then grip the podium for dear life for 40 minutes while imparting congratulations and wisdom to college graduates about to take on the world. Mortarboard tassels still swinging from being shifted, the kids endure (or, if it was like my high school graduation, pass around a Daily’s Juice bottle full of orange juice and vodka). Parents in the audience lap it up. Damn right, they think. I paid, or am still paying, for this.

Trouble is, an important component of the audience is missing: employers. To my knowledge, no employer of recent college graduates has ever attended a commencement speech. Reason I know is, they simply don’t understand. They could not have heard what was said there. Millions of grads who have started new jobs can confirm this. The mental process goes something like this:

“What? Why are you so perturbed?” the graduate thinks when a boss upbraids him. “My memo couldn’t have been that bad. Didn’t you hear the commencement speech at my graduation? I’m the hope of the future. We all are. We worked hard, persevered, learned, grew, became enriched. We have energy and verve. We’re different than all the classes that came before. The world isn’t just our oyster; it’s one of those boffo roasted oysters from Drago’s! No one with these attributes could have written an anemic memo. Especially when you look at some of the know-nothing slackers who you’ve carried on the books at this place for years! I mean, some of these people are…ugh…fat.”

And on and on.

Now surely, there are plenty of arrogant graduates whose sense of entitlement and oh-so-flat tummies combine to make them as annoying as a sinus infection. But there are just as many industrious youngsters who want to put in their time and make good, honestly. It has always galled me that the last thing we tell them as collegians is, “You are a perfectly formed creature, full of knowledge and energy!” and the first thing they often hear as employees is, “You know NOTHING, you’ve done NOTHING, and you’re worth NOTHING, and you likely won’t survive no mater what you do. Now go pick up my lunch.”

Who has time for that crap? I’m here to help. As a public service, here is a translated commencement speech that will end up being a damn sight more useful. Parents listening to it may need a drink; they should ask their kids to pass the Daily’s Juice bottle.

“Graduates:

“A great writer once noted that we tell college graduates one story, then flip it around into something nasty once you get a job. If you’re lucky enough to get a job. In the words of that writer, who has time for that crap?

“So I’m going to tell you what’s what. Fact is, you are a magnificent group of people. Compared to other classes? I have no idea; I just flew in last night. But it’s true: you reached a formidable academic goal while negotiating massive shoals of temptation, recreation, love, sex, sports, financial turbulence, parental expectations (really demands) and biggest of all, occasional self-doubt. Congratulations for coming through.

“You have knowledge. You have energy, maybe more than you will ever have in your life. You don’t have experience, but it’s not your fault you’re only 22. Get the experience, don’t be disappointed if it’s a different color than the little digits in the paint-by-number dream you’ve always had, and bank it all.

“Heed this warning: when you enter the workplace, you will encounter the accomplished and admirable. You will also meet the mean and mendacious. You will be insulted, denigrated, marginalized. You will be disgusted and abused by people who once had dreams and aspirations like yours, but who can no longer see them through the hills of shit they have built around themselves.

“These are the small people, the weak, the ones who allowed disappointment to take over the whole game instead of just one inning. I won’t lie to you: some of these people will have power over you. All I can say is, put your head down, glean what experience you can from these picked-over fields, and get out as soon as you can.

“You will hear a lot of people tell you that following your dreams is better than riches. Do what you love and the money will come, they will say. They are right. But when you hold in your arms in the maternity ward a life you created with someone you love, that child has become the doing-what-you-love, and the money has to come. Find a way to rejoice in that, and not rue the missed opportunity to become the solo free spirit that so many people seem to think is the only version of a happy human. To love and be loved by a child, I can tell you, is the pinnacle of existence, even with all the pressure to support that precious creature.

“Hold fast to your friends. In the next few years, you are going to need each other very, very much. Be prepared: as years, marriages, and children go by, some of those bonds will stretch, fade, and crack. Others will add rings year by year like mighty oaks. Cherish these; nurture them.

“We’re all thirsty, so I’ll wrap up. Whatever joys or indignities lie ahead for you, follow the best advice my Dad ever gave me (among a motherlode of gems): it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, as long as you get up.

“Enjoy your families today. Your parents are ready to bust with pride. Let them. Enjoy all the parties. Be safe. Thanks for letting me speak to you. God bless you.”♦

© 2013 Adam Barr

The Secret Lives of 12-Year-Olds

We all have troubles, but I really can’t think of a time when my burdens have exceeded my blessings. Two of the gems in my menagerie of good fortune are 1) my son Joseph, who is 12, and 2) the career change that allows me to spend more time with him at this crucial stage in his life.

If you have visited this space before, you likely know that I am very glad to be a parent, especially of this particular kid. That’s not to say that parenting is easy, or even pleasant every moment. Such is the way with many worthwhile pursuits in life. (Think of running or weighlifting. Multiply by 30ish. There you go.) One wants to be accurate about this, but I wouldn’t even describe the joys/tribulations of parenting as a dichotomy; that would require the coexistence of two markedly different things. The good and bad of parenting are so mystically melded that it can be hard to see where one ends and the other begins. It’s always a blurry, moving border.

An example: upon becoming a parent, it’s natural to want to establish as much solidity as possible in your life. You naturally want to do this job without being knocked off balance by the winds and earthquakes of adult life’s mounting uncertainties. You want to lash yourself to a rock of safety and decency, an island with a big harbor, safe from storms.

And most of us do a good job creating some certainty. But it’s less secure than we think, although not necessarily because of any failing of ours. No, it’s because of the nature of the task. The fact is, as parents, we have much less control than we think of our children. To a great extent, they raise themselves.

The dude himself, taking a brief break from studying.

Don’t get me wrong. The boundary business is strictly ours to control as the moms and dads. We set the limits, the rules, the benchmarks of behavior and achievement that promote health, safety, self-respect and many other personal assets. But to allow ourselves to believe we know our children’s minds wall-to-wall is folly.

This revelation need not be an occasion for panic. But it does untether you from that rock. When we say, “What is he thinking?” we are usually wondering out loud which synapse failed to fire to keep a child from misplacing his math book again. But more and more, I find myself in moments of repose truly wondering, “What is on my Joseph’s mind? What is he thinking about? What conclusions is he drawing?” Of course, I talk to him as much as I can. But unless safety is concerned, my curiosity alone is not reason enough for poking my mental flashlight into every corner of his privacy. He has to be allowed to be his own person in his own brain.

Still, a parent wonders. We watch behavior for cues and clues the way a hunter in the forest watches the subtle turning of leaves in the breeze. And how do I know there’s even something to watch for?

Simple. Same as you. I was once him. At 12, I had a full-blown mental life, same as any 12-year-old. I had my views on what adults did and why, and whether it was smart (I was right about half the time). I heard the news and drew my own conclusions. I went out and got the information I wanted — before 12, I was riding busses by myself all over Pittsburgh, often to the Carnegie Library to get out books and listen to music. I walked five miles to the soccer field at the high school to play with my friends. When I wanted to, I bought Rolling Stone and National Lampoon and read things that my parents might have been considered contraband.

The fact that my son is less self-mobile than I was (times are not as safe) doesn’t change the overall analysis. He can use a keyboard better than I ever used a library card. He has all the info he wants, whenever he wants it. (Only rule: clear your History on Safari or Chrome, and you’re automatically grounded from electronics.)

So what are his views on….Syria? God? Abortion? Jobs? College? Girls? Sex? Ben Zobrist against lefties with runners in scoring position? Some of these things, it’s important for me to know, so I can be ready to help. But by this age, he has to meet me halfway. And if he chooses to build walls…I can’t stop trying, but there’s not much I can do about it.

Except…be available, be welcoming, and provide an example of enlightened parenting based on love and respect. This is a job that does not involve consistent daily reward, and takes more faith than just running or weightlifting. But so far, so good.

Here’s how I know. Joseph, who is ever-increasing in size and manliness, comes to his mother and me with questions. And he still gives, accepts, and asks for hugs from his Dad. One day I know the physical hugs may stop. I pray every day that the spiritual ones never do.♦

© 2013 Adam Barr

Photo by Adam Barr

Hotel Room in My Hometown

It’s not that I’m unwelcome. Pittsburgh always welcomes me warmly, even though I haven’t lived there for more than 20 years. And I still like to visit.

But what could feel more odd than checking into a hotel room in the city that was home for so many years?

My Mom and Dad, 86 and 89 respectively, now live in a nursing home in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. More than 10 years ago, they sold the house I grew up in with my two brothers. They moved into a condo not far away, a place I never liked much, but it was convenient. I got married in 1990 and quite coincidentally, moved to Chicago a few months later to take advantage of a career opportunity for my new bride. When I came back for visits, it was understood: I had a place to stay. I knew the smells, the creaks in the floor, where the spatulas went, and that the kitchen clock was always four minutes fast.

Be it ever so…homogenous….

Once I was asked to come to town to give a speech to my old law school class. It was a great evening; I invited my parents (my Dad was not yet in a wheelchair). The speech went well. Part of the deal was that I would be given a room at the then-Pittsburgh Hilton, a local institution whose upper rooms looked out over Point State Park and the junction of the Monongehela and Allegheny Rivers to form the Ohio River. I dared not refuse it. I didn’t want to offend my hosts. But shaking hands with my Dad before he and my Mom went to “our” home felt dissonant. Sitting in the hotel room with a drink 20 minutes later was no more harmonious. Lavish, sure. Comfortable, yes. Proper? No.

Once it was clear that my parents would be staying in the nursing home, we all agreed it was time to sell the unoccupied condo. So…my real estate cords with my hometown were cut, probably forever.

It’s no one’s fault. I have never shed a tear. The condo, good riddance. As for the house…I loved that 1963-vintage colonial, a tight little four-bedroom affair with a working fireplace. It was perched on top of a big ridge, unsheltered from west winds that made the windows moan in winter — but unhampered in its magnificent sunset view in summer. There was a giant willow in back, so big you could sit under it and read in your own natural gazebo. From my north bedroom window I could just see, over hilltops, the red-or-blue weather light on top of the Gulf Building in downtown Pittsburgh, seven miles away.

I could dream on and on. But I don’t miss it as much as I thought I would. Maybe because it’s all engraved, not just jotted, on my memory. Still, being an out-of-towner in my town… I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.♦

© 2013 Adam Barr

Photo by Adam Barr