I learned three lessons this past weekend as I worked to bring 30 house plants home from summer camp. That’s what I call it when they go to live on our screened-in porch from May to October: “summer camp” and my, do they love it out there! The violets with their soft stubby arms, the ferns with their petticoats, the tall palms towering elegantly over the rest like members of the WNBA: All flourish during their months on the porch. All return looking greener, fuller, healthier all around.
Of course it takes hours to wash the pollen from their little faces and match each to its winter basket inside but the lessons I learned as I worked were so valuable I thought I would share them here:
One, we can’t know what any creature needs with a quick trot-by. We need to study it closely. Are the plant’s tips beginning to brown? Have parasites climbed aboard its leaves and branches? Plants get sick just as we do and yes, those white spider mite shrouds look awful but a simple soap-and-water bath will remove them - and really who cares if it takes three solid Law & Order episodes to complete the task?
After treating the sick ones I put them in the “infirmary,” meaning any convenient spot where I can keep my eye on them, just as our mothers did for us during childhood illnesses. Neither measles nor mumps nor flu bouts nor chickenpox could frighten me because Mom would put me in her bed, then sleep in the bedroom across the hall with both doors open to watch me throughout the night.
Two, at the same time we shouldn’t hover over a plant any more than we should hover over a child. All living things need space, elbow room, a sense of ‘agency’ if you will. I learned this the first time I read Thalassa Cruso’s wonderful Making Things Grow: a root NEEDS to reach in search of the water that sustains it. If we’re forever inundating these roots they will only rot. Let the soil dry out between waterings and watch what motivation can accomplish!
Three, we must remember that life is life and deserves our reverence in whatever form we find it. Once, I might have gone off for the weekend without wondering if any of my plants were thirsty. God knows as a young adult I was none too mindful of the tropical fish I kept, which, in their brightly-lit tank, were to me little more than living wallpaper.
Now, sensing my kinship with the living things in my care I am very mindful of their well-being. We are the same in so many ways. Is this cold I have not a kind of ‘infestation’? And if I fail to drink enough water in the course of my day do I not feel ill myself?
I hate to think of my plants feeling ill. They didn’t ask to be brought into my life any more than my children asked to be born.
On that cool breezy porch they have enjoyed a life much more like the life they would have known in the wild. It seems to me the least I can do as I bring them back into “captivity” is to be a faithful steward, until that spring day when Mother Nature tips us back toward the sun, letting its wondrous light spill once again over all Her creatures.
Note: the comments that follow could belong to any week’s column.
September 27, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Hello Terry,
What a gutsy and good thing you did to write about Alzheimer’s with a touch of humor and a boxcar full of sensitivity!
Something that amazed me when my mother-in-law and I attended a support group for caregivers of Alzheimer’s was that in one of many pamphlets they shared was a comment that those affected report seeing a “golden girl” of sorts. Prior to this meeting, we believed my father-in-law was the only one to see the “golden girl.”
It always made me curious that when I was around he would always see water everywhere. He saw random dripping water or puddles of water where there were none when I wasn’t around too but never ceased to see it when I was around. (The times he “saw” water in which I wasn’t present were much fewer in comparison to those he saw it when I was present.)
He had the added destruction of Lewey body dementia (I’m not certain of the spelling,) so each day was an adventure. Another thing he saw a lot of was children at play. Some of these children he saw were not very nice to him and would play tricks on him, he suggested. Their constant presence and overly abundant energy made him so anxious and constantly jittery.
The most painful effects of his illness, to me, were his constant fear and worry about death and losing God’s love, his delusions that my mother-in-law had numerous male guests around her all the time, and his confusion and disgust when everything he tried to eat appeared to him to be full of insects.
It seemed I was just getting to know him well (being newly married into the family — only for a few years at the time) when he was diagnosed. Sometimes, I told myself that whatever it was that made him, him (such as a soul or spirit) had left long before the illness and so he wasn’t suffering. What we were seeing was his body trying to make its way around in the world without the “him” inside, I reasoned. Most times, that brought me comfort. Others, it made me sad, knowing whether that was a possibility or not, the man we all knew, loved, admired, enjoyed life with, was gone and wouldn’t be returning.
Alzheimer’s isn’t funny at all, but I agree that we must find the humor somewhere in all the pain, no matter how well it’s hidden.
Thank you for the way you tackled the subject with such care, sincerity and cautious humor. And don’t feel bad about the cup of coffee in the cabinet; afterall, at least it was with “fellow cups” and not in the clothes dryer or mailbox.
Johnna “Jo” Ray
September 28, 2009 at 6:18 am
Your article “Our old people care for us while we attend them” truly touched my heart. I think your kindness in handling the request to write something humorous about Alzheimer’s disease was handled with such diplomacy. Although there is nothing funny about the disease, humorous moments do occur and a person does need to laugh about the absurdities.
As a caregiver for my 68 year old husband who has had Alzheimer’s for over nine years, and a an Alzheimer’s coach who supports other caregivers in their journey, I have shared a lot of laughs. My husband picks up and/or pockets everything that is not bolted down, batteries from Wal-Mart, other folks last bite of food, their slice of pizza, piece of cake, the hat off their head or the pen with which they are writing. He is quick like a frog catching a fly. The choice is to feel amused or become upset. Neither response will change the behavior, but a smile or inner laugh will leave the caregiver feeling more positive.
I have learned so much about love, laughter and living in the moment from my dear lost husband that I could write on and on.
Again, your sensitivity to the disease and those who are living with it is admirable.
October 4, 2009 at 10:54 am
Cousin Terry-caught your column and wanted to tell you about a time I was volunteering for the Hunt Home in Nashua and drove a contingent of the demented residents to a restaurant. Quite an adventure! As we were getting back into the van to go “home,” a lovely girl with a beautiful, shiny-coated dog walked by and an old man who had barely been able to chew his lunch, spoke clearly and in a “with it” voice. Usually he never spoke at all. But this time he said, “Look at that well-groomed Labrador Retreiver! What a beautiful coat!” Startled by the sound of his own voice, I guess, he sort of jumped, then met my eyes and said, as tears filled his own, “Where the hell did that come from? Most of the time I don’t know my own name!” I never heard him speak again. It was funny-sad. Nicest Alz. story I know is about a man who cared for his afflicted wife day in, day out, spoon-feeding her, talking to her, etc., till she died. Then he died too, later that same afternoon. And there was nothing wrong with him. She was in the Hunt, he still lived independently. Stories, stories, stories! Julia (Sullivan) Breveleri
October 29, 2009 at 2:19 pm
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