A Vignette…

We celebrated July 4, and it was fun, but dementia and living apart has made holidays different. Better? Worse? Or maybe just different…

         IT’S JULY 4 and I am surrounded by memories of times when this was a holiday filled with people, good food, libations of some sort and a bang-up end to the day.

            It goes back to childhood in Wilmington, OH where my grandparents’ place afforded a look at the city fireworks in the park. We’d haul chairs out behind the barn and take it all in. There were aunts, uncles, cousins, later Connie and the kids and friends of my sister and her husband. Over the years, as we moved around with jobs, we forged other holiday traditions with new friends and sometimes family dropped by.

            This July 4, around mid-afternoon, I’m sitting by myself at the computer in my apartment, listening to sounds from the swimming pool. I am being nostalgic. I am thinking about how holidays really are about being with people and without those people, it’s just another day.

            Last night my son, Seth, and daughter-in-law, Diane, came over and we walked a new restaurant about a block from the apartment for Connie’s birthday dinner. It was all good. We came back and had birthday cupcakes and ice cream out in the courtyard next to my unit. I took Connie back to her place and we watched some TV and it was a nice night. 

            This morning I went down and cleaned up her bird feeders and we took a walk. When I got home I went out to the pool, chatted with some folks, took a dip then a nap. Seth called and invited me to their swim club but I’m fighting a disk problem and some pain and so declined. Tonight I’ll go back down to be with Connie. If she can stay up late enough, until darkness comes, maybe we will catch some fireworks on the TV.

            But it won’t be like it was out behind the old red barn with family and friends all around. It won’t be bad because she and I will be together, but it won’t be like it was. I suppose as life goes on, we all age, families scatter, a lot of folks are looking at holidays and saying “they aren’t like they used to be.”

            For us, though, it’s this damn journey that is making a difference. The highway you take on the dementia journey, the road doesn’t really have an exit ramp for holidays, or much else. It’s going in one direction and while you can pause and treasure a moment at the side of the road, you can’t really get off.

            Rich Heiland, has been a reporter, editor, publisher/general manager at daily papers in Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and New Hampshire. He was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Xenia Daily (OH) Daily Gazette, a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year. He has worked as a consultant doing public speaking and training business specializing in customer service, general management, leadership and staff development. He and his wife live in West Chester, PA. He can be reached at [email protected].