The Caregiver

I found it in the kitchen drawer. Cryptic notes on a page from a tiny tablet, dates, times, and amounts of liquid morphine and the other medicines I had given Mom her last few days of life. I'd had to write it down to keep it straight in my mind.  July 24, July 25,  right up to 11 AM on 26th, the last time I gave Mom her meds.  She opened her eyes and her tiny little breaths, short and gasping, ceased.  She quietly passed from this world at 12:06 PM.  I am unwilling to part with this little piece of paper.  It means something but I don't yet know what it signifies.

By placing myself here, at the keyboard, I'm feeling a heavy weight bearing down on me.  I don't want to write, haven't written since February.  I have been telling myself to channel my grief and sadness into my paintings, into the non-verbal discourse of art.  But that's not happening.  I'm sort of stuck, plugged up, corked (I think they call this "denial.")  I'm wondering if I've even begun to grieve.

Sadness and grief are partners but they are not the same.  I am sad, most certainly.  But there are feelings buried inside that I don't even begin to want to explore. Perhaps it's like returning from a trip or retreat or "mountaintop" experience; not wanting to talk about it too much for fear the telling of it is remembered more than the experience itself.  Are these memories too precious to be spoken of or too painful to admit?

Maybe I should begin by telling you that I was my mother's caregiver.  What a dignified title, "caregiver."  I didn't seek it but I  accepted it and I think I eventually learned to do it well.  Finally.  In the last few days of my mother's life.

I had really hoped that when Mom and Dad moved in with us they would be able to enjoy life in Saint Charles.  I dreamed of Mom and me going shopping and enjoying painting together.  I hoped Pop could walk up and down Main Street, smoking his cigars and flirting with the shopkeepers.  But by the time we convinced them to move in with us, Pop was recovering from triple by-pass and gallbladder surgeries and Mom's leukemia and congestive heart were advanced.  She was already dying, had been dying, by inches for a very long time and we just couldn't see it.  That sounds paradoxical because we had thought she was dying, expecting it for years but she had this amazing knack of recovery.  Total rebound that made us question each episode that preceded it.  Now, looking through the lens of the last few months, I see it all much clearer.

It didn't happen the way I'd hoped.  Mom lived here pretty much the same way as she had before coming, mostly in the bedroom and sleeping much of the time. We did a couple of shopping trips, a few lunches out, and maybe one or two times in the studio.  She expressed much regret and a lot of desire but never had the physical or mental energy to get out and do things.  But the one thing that I regret the most is that Mom was disappointed in our relationship.

Mom had anticipated life here as an extended vacation, much like the times that I had spent with her in their home in Alabama when we came to visit.  At the time they moved in with us, Tim and I were still teaching classes two-three nights a week and had a studio and gallery to run.  Even if I had had nothing to do, I still wouldn't have wanted to sit beside her bed all day long, to the exclusion of all else, drinking coffee endlessly and waiting on her needs (this was pretty much how my visits to Alabama went.)  But not only that, we found ourselves butting heads over almost everything, especially the dispensing of drugs.  And as the caregiver, I took that business very seriously.

If it was a matter of giving something other than the doctors had prescribed, I could not be swayed. My mother met her match in me.  Mom, who had spent her entire life governing herself and making up her own mind about which drugs to take and how much and when, now had a daughter telling her what she could and couldn't have.  We argued about this and other things, and Mom lamented that I was not the "Chrissy Jane" she thought I was and that even though she was so thankful to have my care and to be living with me, it was not what she had anticipated.

Now for my moment of self-justification:  even when I did take the time to sit with Momma, she would pick up a magazine or watch tv or most often, take a nap.  I would slip away and return to whatever I had been doing.  I thought that between mealtimes and coffee times and bedtime snuggles we had shared a lot of times but Mom said she thought it would have been better if she had stayed home.  At least, she thought, the boys checked in on her now and then.  No matter Dad was in his chair just outside the bedroom door.  No matter that she had been desperately lonely on the farm before she came.  No matter that we were living together, not visiting a few brief days a year.

She was dying and needed lots of love and reassurance.  Because I was suffering from caregiver fatigue, and because she'd rallied so many times that neither I nor any one else believed she was ever going to really die, and mostly because it happened so gradually that I didn't believe the evidence before my eyes, I withheld the last bit of energy and love that I could have given.  Until she was really and truly dying, and then I gave her my all.        

Measure of Success

I often wonder what film stars experience when they encounter images of themselves in the movies they have made.  I feel a sort of pity when I see them as they appear today compared to their younger selves, frozen in perpetual beauty or virility.  Some become recluses, refusing to be seen in their decrepitude. Others spend fortunes on plastic surgery, refusing to accept the inevitable.  Their lives are lived in reverse.

You don't have to be a famous beauty to get depressed when you look at old photos of yourself. Anyone can feel a sense of loss for their own youth, well spent or otherwise. I feel a definite sort of pity for my younger sister, nine years my junior.  She has this continual reminder before her (me) of how she will be looking in about a decade!  Poor dear!!!  Those of us with Scotch-Irish complexions that have spent years in the sun do NOT age gracefully!!!

Painters have reminders of their past everywhere in their works hanging on the wall. Are the paintings which I did in my younger years better than what I am doing now?  Certainly if I use the ruler of financial success, I see myself as failing.  I used to sell a lot more than I do now.  If I rate my growth through the mastery of draftsmanship or technical skills, it might be a draw.  But, if I measure my success as an artist by the ability to paint from life, instead of photography, I think I'm miles ahead.  If I count the ability to paint a la prima, directly, without elaborate under painting, I am pleased with that. If I take into consideration my increasing ability to capture life-like skin tones, that is also progress.

I am not certain if I am a better painter but I am pleased with little steps of success.  Being a self-taught artist,  I haven't gone through the exercises that most artists have been schooled in.  So when I diverge from painting people to paint a landscape or a still life, I am thrilled!  Because I learned to paint people first and apples later, that is progress to me.

Now I'm doing "genre" paintings.  My brother has been bugging me for years to combine his expertise in western horsemanship, tack and lifestyle with my love of horses into creating some authentic Western Art. I have painted my first ever cow portrait!  Actually, it's a young bull (see earlier blog.)  I am just thrilled with the way it turned out.  The piece I am working on right now is three riders in an Arizona landscape.  I've done a careful under-painting so that I could get all the legs in perspective, looking believable.  As I model the forms in paint, my knowledge of horses come slowly rising out of the deep recesses of my brain, like a remembered language, long unused.  

Artists have it all out there, exposed and laid bare for people to see, much like movie stars.  How will you judge me?  Do you see me pushing against formula?  Am I gaining or just treading in place?  Can you see my struggles with personal expression and artistic integrity? Is my work relevant or passe'?

I consider this lovely little study (above) a success... Alie posed in costume as the Girl with a Pearl Earring.  I started it in the live session Tuesday night and finished it from a photo in a few hours Wednesday. It's not my "best" but it really works for me.  Hope I'm living my life forward, not in reverse!

Redistribution of Wealth

My friend would get terribly excited when the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes information would come in the mail.  She'd lick every sticker and fill out each blank on every page of advertising that was sent and mail it back speedily.  She would then pray to the Lord, asking if he would let her win, she would give this much to one charity and that much to another. I don't fault her for her sentiments, because I've bargained with God before on many occasions.  But what I would ask her, cheekily, at that time was, "How much are you giving to these concerns now?" I was, of course, being a little smug, but my point was that we should be sharing the wealth that we have now rather than waiting for God to make us richer.  


What makes us think that we will feel more charitable when we have more money?  If we aren't faithful with the little we have, how can we be faithful with more (or be trusted with more, as the Bible so aptly reminds us?) We are just fooling ourselves.


We also deceive ourselves when we think that we only want to make the world a more equitable place by taxing the rich and giving it to the poor. What we are saying, despite all of our pious cries for social justice, is this: "you have more than me and that's not fair." The truth is, "taking" (i.e., taxing) something from someone simply because they have more is not fair, whether practiced by highway robbers or the federal government.  If the problem were only the need for social equity!  Some are calling for retributive justice, seeking to punish the crimes of the past by taxing the present. 


My concern is with a government take-over of the justice business.  Laws do a terrible job of policing behavior. Take highway travel speeds, for instance. We know that excessive speed is dangerous. The government regulates the safety of highway travel by enacting speed limits.  Do these laws deter people from speeding? Hmmmm, perhaps somewhat. However, one usually reacts only to the police car on the side of the road or in the rear view mirror.  What we really need is internal conviction that driving too fast is selfish and dangerous and potentially deadly to oneself and others. In the case of social justice, we need the conviction that caring for the poor (feeding, clothing, teaching, and elevating from poverty) is the business of mankind. What we need is a response to the goodness and generosity we've been shown by sharing it with others.  "What do you have that you did not receive?" 


All who read this are incredibly wealthy.  You are, after all, reading this on a computer.  What have you or I to share and how much better are we able to do this than the federal government?  If we are not faithful with the "little" we have, how can we expect ourselves to be faithful with more?

In Search of Wings

Mom and Dad say I was a naturally pleasant and cheerful child, even as a baby. They said I would greet them in the morning, while standing in my crib, with: "Hi! Hello! Good morning, Mommy!" I'm sure I was indulged and cosseted, being the third child and the first girl. But, even so, or despite that, I was sweet and good.

I also had a devilish streak, too. One time my friend, Suzy Kohl, and I were taking a nap at my house. I guess that makes us about four years old. For some reason we were placed in my brothers' room. We didn't nap, but instead the devil got into us and we proceeded to tear up the room. I don't know if it started with a demon or a dare, but before we were through the room was destroyed. Not even my brother Steve's brand-new box kite, which I don't think he had even flown yet, was spared. I'll never forget how sad and ashamed I felt when I saw his face. He stood in the doorway and his face crumpled into tears as he looked over the devastation.

But, when I was being good, truly good, my mother would say to me, "Oh, look, Chrissy: I see your wings budding. Look here!" She pointed to a spot just inside my shoulder blades and I would turn in circles trying to see behind me. "There," she said, "tiny little wings. Can't you see them?" When I cried, "Where, where?" she reassured me that they would grow if I would only be good.

I think I'm still by nature a pleasant person. I'm good natured and I laugh easily. I can't stay angry at someone no matter how I try. I easily forget wrongs and I rarely say mean things on purpose. That doesn't mean I don't hurt people by mistake, but I'm not vindictive in any sense of the word. But does that make me "good?"

I believe that, even though I have goodness in me, I'm not "good". My human nature, left to itself, is pretty rotten. I desperately want to be better, to get my full set of wings, so to speak. While I'm not consciously trying to improve myself every day, I do have a plan.

The main thing I try to do is to put good things inside my mind. I read great literature, listen to music that enriches my mind and soul, study great art and most important of all, I read the Good Book consistently. When I get sad or discouraged, I usually find that I've failed to "fuel-up." My storehouse has gotten low. I don't want to run dry. I know that none of these things will make me good, that only by being truly renewed in my spirit by God's grace have I any righteousness at all, but that by developing the habit of fueling up with good things will I ever have a chance of getting my wings.

When my youngest child, Ben, was about seven years old, he was sitting at the table eating breakfast before school. Beautiful music was playing on the stereo and I was busy getting his things together. When I turned towards him I saw that tears were streaming down his face. I said, "Oh Ben, what's wrong?" And he turned towards me and said, "Mom, why don't we have wings?" I suppose the music had touched his tender spirit and made him want to soar like a bird. I don't know where it came from but I said to him, "Because then we would have one thing less to look forward to when we get to heaven."

I don't think we will, like Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life, all become angels nor that we have to earn our wings when we get to heaven. But Ben was sharing my life-long desire to soar on wings of beauty and goodness. Next time you see me do something good, you'll know that I'm still trying to grow those wings.

Invisibility Cloak

I've been meditating on the imperatives in the Bible to "be humble." Paul, in Colossians, says to "put on" humility, as if it were a cloak. Peter says, "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'” (emphasis mine.)

In the much loved David Copperfield, the smarmy Uriah Heep says: "I am well aware that I am the umblest person going." As soon as you think you are humble, by virtue of your awareness, you are not. So, I am deducing that humility it is an action that we must employ, not a quality that we can claim to have.

It's not until the end of the saga that Harry Potter realizes the uniqueness of the invisibility cloak that Professor Dumbledore has given him. Throughout the story Harry employs the cloak to slip in and out of Hogwarts, to do mischief and to do good, but mostly he just takes it for granted. He draws it over himself and he becomes completely invisible to the eye and even to witchcraft, virtually undetectable. Invisibility is something which he puts on. In no wise, even as a wizard, is he able to become invisible any other way.

Where do I find a cloak of humility? If this is a characteristic that I am commanded to display but which I can't manufacture from within, then how do I go about putting it on? "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." So, is the Bible saying that if I chose to love someone in the way that is best for them then God will give me the grace to do it? This is tough. I like having the last word. There is something so monstrously satisfying in being justified in my own mind. But there is no peace in it. No, the only choice is to love and that can only be done well through the grace of humility, not in weakness but in strength.

I don't have to become invisible but I do have to get my motives and preconceptions out of the way. Choice is the action, grace is the means, humility is the result. After all, as Dumbledore says, it's not our abilities that make us who we are but the choices that we make.