In the shadow of a dying light

Last week I made public that I'm done with the business of radio, and my mother in law didn't recognize my wife when she showed up at the hospital to see how she's doing.

There's an intersection here, somewhere, though I  struggle to find what it is.

We moved Oralie to Minnesota last summer, her Alzheimer's had made living on her own in the Berkshires problematic, and while my brother-in-law can provide the kind of help and support only a man of his boundless decency can, only  a daughter -- at least this daughter -- can provide the kind of attention and love that a dying light requires.

In the six months since Oralie arrived, I've seen a grace in the dying that I hadn't earlier recognized, and with each bit of patience, with each  attention to detail, with each far-off look that told me Carolie is off with her mother's worries, I increasingly wondered what I'm doing looking for meaning in such trivia as daily news.

I've never had the kind of relationship with my employers that a lot of people do. I like many of the people I work with, loathe one or two others, and cash a paycheck every other Friday. It's a business, not a family.

I loved radio, I enjoyed writing, I found an occasional creative satisfaction in the turns of a phrase, read by by, maybe 1,000 people who'd forget it shortly thereafter. But the job of our jobs is to fund our lives.

"A paycheck is what you get in exchange for your life's energies," an author of a book on how to retire after 30 and live the good life in Vermont once told me on a talk show I was hosting on MPR.

She was mostly full of shit in her book (the secret to retiring in your 30s is to become a millionaire in your 20's), but not that. Your job is not your life.

My job was to make enough money so Carolie could do the things she does that changes people's lives.   This reality became clear years ago when she told me about her day; a young woman, possibly pregnant, addicted, and homeless -- if I recall correctly -- showed up at her office for help.  She was an  impossible task.But by the end of her day, Carolie had her housing, health care, and food.

"I wrote a blog today," I said.

Carolie no longer has that job; the county and hospital that ran the program for that sort of direct aid and results, decided there was better money spent somewhere else. She moved on to another job where lost causes can get a day's hope.

But watching her with her mom is clearly an extension of the goodness and love she brings to her job.  Her patience seems inexhaustible, though I can also see the damage of watching your mother slip away.

Mine is 97. And I haven't seen her in a year.   I write a blog. My performance review is based on page views. My workplace doesn't staff the blog when I'm gone.There are no page views when I'm gone.Ergo, I don't go away.

That's absurd and I know it's absurd, and yet, I let something insigificant define my place on the planet.

When my Meniere's Disease spread to the "good ear" in November, my "eureka" moment came during one of the wretched night of vomiting from the constant resulting vertigo. "What are you doing?"

The next day I told the boss that May 31-- my 65th birthday, the day I would be eligible for Medicare -- would be my last.  I can't do the things I need to do to write at a high level (involving phone calls I can't hear, and interviews I can't participate in).  But even if I could, it no longer serves an appropriate purpose.

I have other things I can do. I love ushering at Target Field. I love driving people with Lyft (every evening is like I'm doing a radio talk show with open lines again), and,  of course, I love building airplanes.

But what I really want to do is be a better backstop for a woman whose mother didn't recognize her last week. 

Oralie is a delightful, proper, polite yankee woman whose Alzheimer's is removing a filter one by one.  She had suddenly hit another resident in the  $7,000 a month  memory care facility that believes the answer to everything is to call an ambulance and send elderly people to the local ER and let it be their problem.

So for the last week, she's been in a geriatric psychiatric unit in St. Paul, getting the attention she needs.

That's where Carolie showed up the other day, and  announced to her mom that she is her daughter.

"You're my daughter?" Oralie replied, never quite making the connection.

An illness has broken out in the unit now, so everyone is quarantined.We can't visit.

When Carolie called yesterday, Oralie took the phone from the nurse and said, "I can't talk now, I've got a fishing rod in my hand and I'm reeling in a big fish. Bye!" [click]

My wife is good at resuming normal activities and if you weren't paying attention, you'd marvel at her resilience. But she is not resilient.  At least not that resilient.

After yesterday's matinee of Noises Off at the Guthrie Theater, we stopped into a nearby restaurant, and when the food was delivered and we started to dive in, her eyes said she was somewhere else.

"You OK?" I asked.

"My mom," she said, no needing to say anything more.

Though she's never said anything, I can hear what's going on in the mind of a daughter of a woman with Alzheimer's. "Is this what's next for me?"

I can't think of much that's more torturous.

In the coming weeks, we hope to move her mom to another facility closer to Woodbury, one that is better at putting the "care" in memory care.

What's coming will be tragic,exhausting, and, ultimately, full of grace, but require an investment of our life's energy that we exchanged for a paycheck.

I've still got plenty to spend.