Losing Faith

How far would you travel to share a meal?

In my case, more than six hours by car, cruise control set at 74 miles per hour, stopping twice for Starbucks, a bio break and duck-like sprints to get the circulation back in my legs.  This is an every-other-week ritual, loading up after work on Friday to haul up and across the state from Longview to Spokane.  

The last 100 miles of the 386-mile trek on I-5, 18 and I-90 seem to take forever, partly because my internal drive clock has always been set on 280 miles, the distance between Spokane and Seattle, spanning just enough time to listen to a couple of choice podcasts, read aloud from my kindle and grab a quick bite, usually in Ellensburg, before zooming up the pass. Once over Snoqualmie, it would be time to see new things, visit friends or try a new restaurant.

On this new route, the four-hour cycle of canned entertainment runs its course and another good hour and half or two remains in the journey to the 509. I stare down my ticking mental clock, trying to invoke the patience of monks who chant for hours on a cold floor, bending their will to match the eternal now. At hour five my futile attempts at serenity have me fidgeting, playing with the temperature controls, adjusting the seats and mirrors, a wiggly worm in the passenger seat traveling on my own highway to hell.  Once in Spokane I’m so grateful to leap out that I make like the Pope deplaning and ceremoniously kiss the ground.

One of my weekend missions it to visit my mom Faith,who now lives in a house for residents with dementia and Alzheimer’s.  When we first moved her into the facility months ago, she was in an apartment where she could come and go, free to take advantage of the programmed frivolity known as leisurely assisted living. We took great care in picking a place close enough for her church friends to visit, as well as being across the street from the practice that housed her doctor, whom she counted as a friend.  He promised to walk over on occasion to visit her socially.

Understandably full of grief and anger after Dad died, Mom accused us of putting her in jail and locked herself away in her room, fuming at me all the while clutching her beloved Schnauzer.  She refused to participate in social activities and ordered meals in her room, to the tune of $3.50 per meal delivery charge, adding to her $6,000 a month baseline tab.

There was no way to reason with Mom to tell her that we were forced to move her because she tried to set the house afire and left her pills strewn about, leaving diabetes and kidney meds where her dog could get at them. It was my turn to be the parent and receive the wrath of a wronged, willful child-like ball of hate and bear it in the name of honoring my dad’s memory and stepping into his size 13 shoes as Mom’s protector.

One day we received an urgent call from the staff, who wanted Mom immediately moved to the dementia house after they found her on Nevada—a noisy, busy street—aimlessly pushing her walker, with her loyal dog sauntering behind, leash entangled around Mom’s ankles. The visual symmetry of a four-wheeled walker dragging a four-legged companion in a four-lane thoroughfare was oddly beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Was she trying to go home? Was she looking for Dad?

By the time the staff wrangled Mom away from her role as human traffic cone, she forgot she had gone AWOL so there was no use in berating or interrogating an unwitting victim of her own deteriorating brain.

Dementia comes in many forms, and in Mom it manifests as a sly, cruel thief who strips away the ability to learn new information or care for herself. Some become obsessed with food, as my mom has, so I’ve found sharing a meal as a gateway to the vibrant elements of Mom’s personality. The sight of Japanese takeout, including tempura vegetables, teriyaki chicken and sushi, sets her at ease. She flashes recognition of menu items imprinted on her during her youth in Hawai’i. As she gleefully reaches for a dumpling, I flash to second grade and an argument my mom is having with my new blonde, blue-eyed overnight guest who has never seen teriyaki before and is demanding sugar and milk for her boring white rice. Of course Mom’s will wins out over a tearful, hungry seven-year-old who would rather go without than try something new.   

Mom was the first to introduce Hawai’ian and Japanese food to my friends in Chewelah, decades before sushi bars became the staple of strip malls everywhere.  A fabulous cook, Mom would make gourmet meals even when we roughed it in the woods. While others roasted hot dogs over campfires, Mom toiled in our camper kitchen with her griddle and rice cooker, whipping up stir-fry beef, vegetables and Spam musubi. Curious campsite neighbors would crane their necks uncomprehendingly and ask about the evening fare as they munched their S’mores. She beamed with pride as she told them her recipes and lured them in with stories of the travels that helped her acquire an international palate and culinary aplomb.

A loud moaning interrupts my reverie as one of the house residents slumps forward in his wheelchair. Unfazed by the noise, my mom deliberately picks up each piece of sushi and stuffs them into her cheeks.  We fall into our own version of Groundhog Day, with her asking about my job, family and health, with me answering, and back and forth until we circle the same topics at least seven times. As she finishes her last piece of tempura, she grabs the bowl of dipping sauce with both hands ready to slurp the remains, thinking it is soup. I distract her with an offer of water and toss the sauce in the garbage.

Mastering little acts of legerdemain is my way of allowing her to keep her dignity, preventing her from  realizing what she cannot do in those moments of near misses. It’s also a quiet apology for being away, chasing phantom career glory as she sits wiling away the hours, alternating between benign confusion and melancholy awareness of her descent. I clean up around her and promise to do lunch again soon, which makes her smile a rice-dotted smile.  

Of Life Indeed

It’s a gift to find a transcendent being who shows you how to find the mystical in the ordinary and whose presence actually transforms a physical space into a calmer, more grounded reality. You find yourself breathing into the moment, racing thoughts slowing to the rhythms of conscious imagining.

Martin Buber’s concept of I and Thou, an authentic relationship that leads to an experience of God, is lived out in interacting with D, whose chosen last name means “of life”. It is in a particular mid-20^th century life that D forged a pioneer’s path, journeying from a “bag lady inspecting glued bottoms” at the local paper mill to a highly trained naval technician in an age that painted the female ideal as a well-heeled, post-war consumer of manufactured goods for the Good Life.

While others were shrieking at Elvis concerts, singing along to one of his 170 hits, D toiled quietly, untangling wires and code, acquiring electronics and computer savvy as a Navy recruit. The only intrepid woman among 401 graduates at a special Naval ceremony, D eventually left the service and tried on big city life in LA. Living in the City of Angels was anything but heavenly, and the solitary sojourner, who longed for the quiet trails of southwestern Washington, returned home.

Home is a tiny port and mill town where old-money mill owners mingle with a class of transplanted doctors, lawyers and engineering managers who enjoy a comfortable living, able to afford membership at the country club and the cultural amenities of two cities less than an hour's drive away.

“The best place to eat in Longview is Portland,” I heard a local foodie sputter.

Culinary wasteland notwithstanding, D’s life is rich. Her daily practice is balanced, thoughtful and joyous. Her bearing is peaceful and centered. Her scenic tour of careers led her to teaching computer technology at the local college. D finds herself teaching courses even now—seven years after her official retirement date. A perfect Jedi master for the frightened technophobe, D views teaching as a “daily lesson in humility,” acknowledging that some of her younger students probably know more about computers than she does, but feels called to stay for those who “don’t know what they don’t know and may never have been exposed because of poverty.”

At 76, D has taught a large number of the college’s faculty, office staff and town residents. I’ve only known her for three months, surreptitiously exchanging book titles and a few passing emails, but she has had a profound impact on me in a way that truly matters. I can only imagine that for those who spend more quality time with D, her sly wit and sprightly optimism burrow into her students’ very core, and that the days are just a bit brighter and their life visions expanded.

In sharing a simple meal of salad and bread with this formidable techie cum Buddhist, I am wrapped in a stillness that keeps the rest of the workaday hassles at bay for that one great hour.