Teardrops resting against my eyes

I am experiencing a flood of emotions as I face the distance of family not just in nautical and land miles but in emotional miles as well. I crave closeness and connection but am substituting that with excuses and delays in visits lately. At times I am blaming God for not having things work out but I have to cling onto and remember the good times that we have had as a family. I will just have to used to a new terrain as I will be spending some more time in another wing at Piper Shores upon my quarterly visit to Maine. I will have to treasure this time that I have and realize that there may be some golden moment to discover about my parents that I never knew before.


Lord, help the teardrops that rest and lay across my eyes to be a portal to show true emotion to my dad and mom. To be the devoted son that they need and to fill in the gaps of love that may be missing.


And to celebrate the ones that are there already.

The Mysterious Landscape

Being around the Atlantic Ocean Of Maine, I have been surrounded by beauty. I have always loved the seashore from when I was thirteen years old to now as a forty-six year old. Three decades have passed since I first was introduced to her as a teenager by mom and dad.

Now, when I think of the sea coast, I do appreciate its splendid beauty but I tend to hold her hand less than I used to. Not that I don't love her any less than I did.

When I first went to the seashore during my summer holiday, I looked intently into her eyes and saw the ravishing beauty under her makeup. I saw her flowing eyebrows as her surf and exploding spume as the garland around her neck. Jewels cast from within my soul to hers.

Now as I visit, I sometimes place my back to her view and treat her nonchalantly. Yet, I do enjoy making my visit. But now it can be tinged with a sense of sadness as I eventually see my time within another decade of this quarterly ritual coming to an end.

Now my dad has entered another stage in his ongoing illness of parkinsons and alzheimer-type dementia. The staff at the Piper Shore's home and my mom felt it was time to provide my dad with more daily supervision and give mom a break in the daily caregiving as well. Right now, I don't know exactly what I will face when I make my pilgrimage back to Maine in another few weeks.

Now that Dad has his own assisted living apartment of his own, he commented to us recently, let us count up the number of bedrooms that we have as a family. First, the main apartment of Mom and I in Piper Shores, mine, Scott's, Randy's in minnesota and Erica's and Abby's. That brings a little levity to the situation since I thought of the same thing a few days earlier. A common link with a sense of humor in a difficult moment that we all face.

A plus of Dad's that would be real cool for me to have is the daily provision of a three meal plan and three snack times. Almost like being back in college and showing up at the cafeteria with my tray to enjoy unlimited entrees of salad and main meal and desserts.

Yet, this will mean that we won't all be eating as a family at our meal times when I visit since dad will be sharing some of his meals in his assisted living wing. It has been a family tradition of ours to share our meals together. I always made it a point to be up in time to do this and if I awoke a little later, dad would be already eating or sitting down after his meal to read some of the daily paper.

Another change for me is that I will no longer have a roommate to share my time with when I sleep. I will have dad's bedroom in the apartment all to myself. A pretty spacious place with some of the furniture out. My own bed and bathroom wing and no snoring or carousing while trying to go to sleep. When we first started the Piper shore journey, I slept on an inflatable mattress with a coverlet over it and a blanket on top. I sometimes would squirm around trying to find the exact balance so I would stay on top of it without the blanket or sheet falling off of it. Then I graduated to the twin bed when mom and dad bought two twins to replace the Queen bed that my dad had. And now to a room by myself.

Mom commented recently that when they went to the cafe for lunch, Dad commented, "I have never seen this room before, WHat is it"?" Mom commented to him," don't you remember, this is the cafe where we have had lunch many times before."

That is the nature of dementia that I am going to have to face head on. I never will know what will come upon me. Almost like as I sat next to the side of the porch in Maine listening to the surf pound its way through the chug hole on the edge of the coast. A chug sound came in random intervals making a rich and melodic sound.

I hope that dad remembers me when I visit and the joys that we used to have going on the Rascal W power boat going fishing and for long excursions along the coast of the Sheepscot Bay to our time rendevousing with the Victory Chimes as she set sail for the Windjammer days to the time that Dad, Randy and I journeyed on the Victory Chimes for an August weekend in Maine.

I am glad that on my March journey of this year that I had the opportunity to dive into Lisa Genova's book called, Still Alice, which is a fictional account of someone with alzheimers disease written from the perspective of the woman going through it. When I read it in the recliner which faced the ocean, I saw nuances of dad's behavior in how Lisa portrayed her character, Alice. It gave a better understanding of this illness as I also witnessed mom dealing with it with her own mom as well.
I find it reassuring at each of my journeys to the coast, i am prepared a little more for the struggles that our family faces and it provides a sense of comfort for me to know that just as Maine is a solid coast that has been etched at for centuries is still there, so it is with Mom and Dad. That they are still there.
A far way from when Dad and mom wore their hard hats inspecting the progress of their complex being built from the ground up.

Yet the stages that our family has gone through can be termed a sense of mourning what has been lost. Of lost memory, lost opportunities and lost hope at times. Yet, it provides for me a sense of preparation for being together and of drawing us close again.

Yet, I am thankful that Maine provides me a place to go and be with my parents. I often have commented of how I love being with them to see the view and spend time with them when I am visiting.

Yet, I need to put on some pearls and look intently into her face and hug her intently. Seeing the very essence of my family heritage in her spume that has been passed down onto me.

The Mysterious Landscape

Dorsal Fins of Memory

Dorsal Fins of Memory.
What do I remember
of how you effortlessly swam through life.
Connecting from one moment to the next
from one school to the next
Now Struggling as you go from point A to point B.

Making splashes and ripples through the seas of time
Creating an undercurrent of emotion and compassion

Lift up your fog so I can see clearly beyond the mist of time

Let my emotions become part of your fog
Remember the journey as we passed by Hendricks Head Light,
fully becoming one with you.

Innocently trusting your instincts
believing in your strengths and resourcefulness

Let me hug you more , Papa, and appreciate all the little stuff that you have done for me.
For those days of time that remain between us.

God is the only functional family~~~

As I look around at the world, I long for being within a functional family unit. Yet, I have not found that. This world is that of dysfunction. For even when God created Adam and Eve, he gave them instructions on not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told them not to eat of that fruit or they surely would die.

For they did out of their own choice, being lured by deceit and craftiness of the enemy.

But God's family of the Trinity is surely a functional family unit-of God being willing to create a world and lose some control over what happens at any given time. Yet part of this mystery is that God is already in control of our planet. I don't really understand how He can do both=except to say that God is all-knowing and He knows what is best. For He needs to provide man some freedom for man so we are not automomous robots as my pastor Dave has mentioned on several occasions during church.

For God was willing to humble himself and become a man and be obedient even to die as this man, Jesus. And God was able to see His son go through this and be alone for a period of three days until His son was resurrected. For everyone knows the roles of the others in this Trinitarian family.

For I long to be like the Trinity=even in one small facet of its existence. And long for insight from readers such as you as to how to make it work so well and encourage the reader to pass this along as we all journey in this walk of Faith this side of Heaven's call.

leftovers

It sure would be nice to email leftovers to others. and then to e-wave them to the dinner table.
Maybe in 2050 we will have a way to invent a procedure to send over the net the great tasty dishes that the Marthas of the world create!!!!

graduation day~~~

No caps and gowns this time around. Yet, my dad graduates to a new phase in his life as he moves across the bridge and over into the Holbrrook community of Piper Shores.



My dad's stuff has been moved to the assisted living community of Piper Shores. As my mom mentioned earlier in the week, my dad told her in a lucid moment, " let us count the number of living rooms our family members are going to have." I was even thinking the same thought. We will have 5 for our family members, one for each one of us.
And my dad is getting a whole big closet again and when I stay, I will be able to be in his old room and will have the whole room to myself. You see, I graduated from sleeping on an inflatable bed in the room to being in my own twin luxury bed next to my dad and now the whole room to myself.

My dad and i look alike and at birth, people knew whose son I was. It will seem different when i go up to visit next month not having my roommate whom I have spent time in many states from Arizona to Minnesota to Maine. But there comes a time in life when those transitions need to be made. We talked about it frequently in a "if things don't improve, you' ll go over the bridge to Holbrook assisted living. Not that I am positively thrilled with the outcome but I am relieved that Dad will be watched and if he tries to take a 3 am shower, he will have staff monitoring his activities and he will have activities to participate in.

To get ready for the move, my mom had to label the linens and clothing with laundry marker -almost reminding her of getting her kids ready for camp. That is the benefit of having built in respite for caregiving. Maybe this change will refresh everyone involved and be a full blessing for our family as well.

That is the trouble with dementia and not being fully aware of one's surroundings. I read in the winter a great book, Still Alice, by Lisa Genova who illustrated alzheimers from the perspective of the patient and the downward spiral. It was funny and yet poignant in parts. I have witnessed similar things in my dad since he has an alzheimer's type dementia.

And I know God was in this whole adventure when one of the cleaning staff who helped clean my folk's unit showed my dad what one of the assisted living rooms, C309 , looked like and then when mom shared with the nursing staff of his activity at night, they took action and approved him for the room.

So life has its changes yet Dad will have activities with peers his own age and condition. Something that has been really needed yet not present when he was on the independent side.

So no more snoring or risings up to witness. Let's hope that is not me in 35 years from now. But that is the beauty of life care, thanks to be introduced to it by my dad's sister, Marion, who was a nurse in Florida and lived in that very kind of community.

And thanks to my mom's keen eye in seeing Piper Shores in Down East one summer advertised even before shovels went in the ground. For they even went on site during construction with their hard hats to witness its going up.

So don't forget to turn your tassel to the side, Dad,when you walk into C309 and enjoy the new chapter in life as well.

Transitions and moves

It is hard for me to accept transitions in life. I learned that my dad is going to transition over to assisted living in the Piper Shores complex. Hard to take that kind of news sometimes. Yet, when aging accentuates quickly with dementia and parkinsons, that is inevitable. And God's grace was present since a room opened up this past week and my folks saw it beforehand.

Lord, in life, there are all kinds of transitions. I think of when you created the universe. That was a big transition going from a big black void of darkness and then going into this beautiful dazzling world of light, even with the mars on it with the disorders and diseases that prevent my dad from living a productive elderly era like I see others in their 80's doing.
But God, you give my mom strength and the resources within Piper Shores and you opened up the slot at just the right time so that your hand is present. Lord, help me not throw my fist in the air in madness but help me realize your hand is upon our family.

Help me Lord to realize transitions happen. Even this morning at church, I heard a friend say that someone moved to heaven and the person's body expired. A different way of looking at it.

God, you have made other transitions in life. There is the one where once you created the universe and the planets and everything that lives on the planet earth, you then made Jesus as an infant over two-thousand years ago. And you helped him through his terrible twos and his adolescence and his early adulthood. You gave Him wisdom and perseverance. You also gave Him the ability to stay away from the devil's schemes and yet, you had Him die on a tree and go to a grave and descend to Hell for our sins, BUT you raised Him from the dead. So thanks for your example, that you are in the moving business. Help me accept the moves within my own parent's lives and help me Lord not to angry but to look to you for the comfort and encouragement as I reach out to others as well.

The music of our lives

Ever consider yourself at the center of a big concert stage and our audience are the folks who influence our very lives.

Music is an integral part of my life. For me the enjoyment of it goes back to when I was in elementary school and our class put on a concert for the town. One of the songs, In the Çorner of the world we sang many times. My mom and dad came to the concert and at the end, I was thoroughly exhausted from having sung it that I could not speak too clearly, but enjoyed the moments sitting at the kitchen table slowly sipping some hot chocolate.

Singing music has been a passion of mine as I have sung as part of my congregation and youth led fellowships and bible studies. We spent time in the dorm room singing praise songs to 'God and each other while Amanda played her guitar and I enjoyed repeating the refrains over and over with my friends. Hearing the melody of the words wash over each other. Imagining what the lyricist must have felt when he created the full-bodied tunes.

At my sunday morning class, I get to hear the choir and vocal teams rehearse their pieces before the service starts. It has a magical quality being below where the music is sung and hearing it in the distance creates a special sense that does not get duplicated when I am in the midst of the congregation singing those same words. They are the same exact words and melody but being immersed in it, it is hard to capture that same essence.

Many times when i am getting ready for work in the morning, I will sing tunes that come to me at random to me-making me like a juke box where I randomly put in a quarter and out comes one of the songs listed on the roster of tunes.
Yet, I tried that during a retreat as I was getting showered at 6 in the morning and Paul sternly told me, "please Scott, no singing in the shower at this time of morning, even with your love of the Lord. Hey, we men are trying to sleep!!:" Yet, that never deterred me at home as I will spontaneously burst out in song with part of a popular lyric, and it does not matter if I get lost midway through the first verse. Singing it is like reciting poetry, hearing the words rhythmically dance across the air.

Music has a special effect on my friend, Gary, from the Kennedy Center. I brought him and his housemates to our christmas holiday program at church and he made a special connection with the choir even before he became part of our congregation.
He refers to it periodically of how special the choir members are to him. Mike in the choir has been very helpful in providing him and myself with rides and spending time at dinners and baseball games. Judy is special to Gary's heart in the way she speaks to him and stands sturdily besides him and can encourage him if he has had a rough week. They became part of his extended family.
Even though Gary can not sing the words eloquently, what comes from his inner being and soul is genuine.

Classical music is another one of my passions. I attend the local Bridgeport Symphony at the Klein auditorium and have been a faithful subscriber for the last few seasons. It is great to be able to hear the various composer's works performed before the able-bodied hands of Gustav Meier. Meier travels a great distance from Switzerland to conduct these concerts but he makes a good connection with his audience.

I go with several from my building,, and we sit together in a row of the red upholstered chairs. My neighbor Polly, across the hall from me, humbly performs some solo pieces from memory since she is legally blind and no one would know that she has this handicap;. Often when I am passing by the hall and hear her playing I will stop for a moment and enjoy her few brief strokes at the piano , Janet my neighbor who drives several of us to and from the symphony observes often of how before Meier came the symphony was not as great as it is now with his international fame. Intertwined in the concerts are stories that Meier tells of the composers lives and what the pieces of the music reflect in life at the time. He likes to tell of colorful dances and movements reflecting the moods of love found and love lost. At times after he puts down the microphone after making his few comments, he bows curtly to the audience and his white head of hair shows and his love for the music flows smoothly out of him as he conducts his pieces with poise and grace.
When I listen to the pieces, I find it hard to interpret them the same way that he shares, but it offers me a moment to appreciate the piece a little differently than if I were to hear it walking through the mall or hearing it over the radio at work.
When I walk through the concert hall, I will meet up with several friends that I have not seen in a while to catch up on her their lives are.


One summer when in our rental cottage in Maine , mom took a Sarah Brightman CD out of its case and played it during our lunchtime. I never before heard such a crystal clear voice and we enjoyed listening to her. Later that fall when i was home in Bridgeport, i noticed the local Arena at Harbor Yard was presenting, Sarah Brightman's Harem tour in concert. I immediately booked the ticket and sat in Section 106 directly across from where the stage was set up. I was seated midway up from the arena floor and it provided me with a birds-eye view as she moved amongst her dancers and was lifted high on her trapeze as she sang the songs while she wore her flowing white gown and had her hair adorned with a bright crystal crown. A lot of the songs had a middle eastern component but the words and tones were rich and fertile with meaning.. Reflecting of how in that part of the world during early civilization's new birth.
I just sat there dazzled and amazed at the beauty of her music having just discovered her a few months prior through a borrowed CD collection that we randomly opened up and listened to her.
After the concert, I purchased several of her CDs and have most of her music at home and my mom has done the same thing. Occasionally when we are together in Maine, mom will put on one of her CDS and listen to it also amazed at the clarity of her voice.


One saturday when I was getting together with friends at the local Andros diner, George Paci commented maybe there will be door prizes that day. When my friend Mark was at the diner, he commented that he recently updated his ipod and was looking to sell his used one. I often saw this ipod in his car as he played it while giving me a ride home from an event. He showed it and I took it and tried on the headphones and spun the dial back and forth getting a handle on how it operates. I subsequently have added several thousand songs and podcasts from collections from the itunes music store and from my own personal collection of cds. Yet, I rarely take the time to dust it off and turn it on to be inspired by all kinds of excellent genres of music that are out there. Yet, there is a world out there that I should myself of so I can someday during a retreat perform a different routine in the shower and maybe win an audience of Paul and the others of my singing in the shower. Yet, I have gotten no encores for my 6 am performance. Definitely would be not be sung to sold-out concert halls and definitely without Michael's swagger and without a white glove.

I have found that music is to be lived and loved. And I am thankful for the composers and songwriters who have magically put together notes and words in such a way that they are celebrated world wide in the presence of our friends and family.

the Lord's pain

Being the Lord's disciple is never easy. Especially when having to make decisions that I hope will work out to the best.
I can imagine Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane telling his best friends of his future without them. Of how He does not want to burden them with much of the pain and sorrow that will follow throughout their life in the walk through Bethlehem. Of just wanting to tell them of what they can handle. And not burdening them further.
For even Peter, one of Jesus' closest disciples had trouble with His master's instructions to keep awake and not fall asleep.

This week I was asked to arrange a ride for a good friend of mine who does not drive and does not have a full understanding of the nuances of life. In my arrangement for his ride, I knew that it might not work perfectly but I provided all the details needed re phone numbers, address and the like. When the plans failed to happen in my friend, Gary, not making it to the game, I felt bad deep down inside in not having gone to some other key players in his life. I was trying to extend those who he could know and interact with. Yet, it back fired badly.

Lord, I can understand a little more of how you in your life had a few back fires in your life. but I am very thankful that you have the power to create great things such as the universe just from your speaking.

And how you gave us imagination to create things out of nothing that was there before.

And being caregivers for others who are dependent on them is not easy. For I see it in my life. With my father dependent on my mother for his care and well being. Of my mom being responsible for my grandmother and with my being dependent on others and mass transit to get me to where I need to go.

Yet, Lord, you are marvelous. For you care for the sparrows among us and have left us the Holy Spirit. Yet, Lord, I am having trouble accessing the Holy spirit lately. As if I have forgotten the password to open it up. I know your Bible is there but I have failed to open and diligently study it!!!
Lord help to realize that you are at my side!!!!!

praise be to your never ending grace!!!!

For He does this eloquently in the upper room discourse. And He tells them in John 14 to not be afraid. Just as Joshua tells others, to not be afraid.