“We built these paper mountains then sat and watched them burn?” – Foo Fighters

A friend recently asked me what it’s like not having either parent living. I thought for a moment and responded with a simple phrase: “It’s quiet.”

I’ve had a lot of quiet moments since my dad’s passing in 2021 and my mom’s passing just a few months ago. Gone are the phone calls and the doctor appointments. Gone are the holiday gatherings and attorney meetings. No more physical therapy appointments. The errands to the grocery store, the bills that need to be paid, the checking accounts that need to be monitored, the correspondence with nurses and aides and staff. All. Gone.

I thought a lot about these moments and others last Saturday at the annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s event in NW Arkansas. It’s an event I’ve participated in the past, but this was the first time for me carrying the purple flower indicating a person who has lost a loved one to dementia. In the past, I had carried a yellow one as one of a caregiver. The purple one was heavier. It also seemed quieter.

Quiet were the footsteps of hundreds of others gathered for the same cause. Quiet were the others thinking similar thoughts and running through a similar gamut of emotions. It was not a celebration. It was not “fun,” but it was necessary and it was also heartbreakingly beautiful as hundreds of others carried yellow and orange and purple flowers. There were even a few blue flower carrying individuals signifying someone currently suffering from dementia, including Wally, whose wife spoke briefly before the walk began. Wally looked on at his wife, smiling… quietly.

There’s a gap now. A gap in activity. A gap in life. But from new gaps new growth can occur. Perhaps even one day that growth will be nothing more than fields and fields of white flowers signifying a cure for those suffering from dementia now and in the future. Until then, we keep living moments at a time.

“Now
For the very first time
Don’t you pay no mind
Set me free, again
To keep alive, a moment at a time”

The irony of today’s song title, “Walk” by Foo Fighters is that many dementia patients (including my mom) eventually lose their ability to walk and lose their ability to talk coherently. It’s the damnedest thing. I really don’t know how else to describe it. Walking one day. Unable to walk the next. The lyrics of the song also speak to learning to talk again. Dementia robs the person of coherent speech. Speaking in English one day. Speaking in mumbled gibberish the next. There were times I just pretended she was speaking in tongues and God understood her and that’s all that mattered.

Dementia sucks and well, if you’ve made it this far and haven’t wanted to go drinking just yet, then you already know this from your own personal experience, or maybe you just wanted to see if I could actually draw some sort of conclusion with a Foo Fighters’ song. Besides the obvious title, this video makes me smile. It makes me laugh. If you’re going to spend time caring or being around someone with dementia, you need to do plenty of both. You need to absorb the madness and the chaos and the complete absurdity of life’s cruelest disease with plenty of smiles and laughs and thankful prayers to offset all of the tears and frustration and anger that accompany it, because there will come a time when the quiet arrives, and a time when the quiet sets in. When it does, you may notice the sun and sky a little more. You might realize you haven’t had time to read a book in years… perhaps even The Good Book. You might feel the wind against your skin with a little more sensitivity. You might feel the pain in your lower back just a bit more from working in the yard, but you might embrace it because it means there is breath in your lungs and strength in your muscles, and that’s a wonderful thing. Or you might sit on your patio watching and contemplating a Northern Cardinal and its’ life as it sits at your bird feeder cracking open safflower seeds and staring back at you intently, curiously, quietly.

When the time comes, what will you do with your quiet?

“Learning to walk again
I believe I’ve waited long enough
Where do I begin?
Learning to talk again
Can’t you see I’ve waited long enough?
Where do I begin?”

Released in June of 2011, this Foo Fighters single went to #1 on the Billboard Rock Charts. The video is a homage to Joel Schumacher’s 1993 movie “Falling Down” starring Michael Douglas. This music video also won the 2011 Best Rock Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. If you like the Foos like I the Foos, and you don’t need any quiet for the next few minutes, then turn it up, smile, and enjoy…

Where do I begin?

sincerely,

the80s