I don't have the words

"I don't have the words"

If you are any kind of a sports fan, you've witnessed something like this. After the championship football game, the sideline reporter grabs the quarterback or other star player of the winning team and asks them what this win means to them. And the next thing you sometimes hear is, "I don't have the words."

It's true. We have moments in our lives when something we experience leaves us... speechless. We are unable to articulate, in that moment, what we are feeling. We say things like, "words fail me." We imply that our vocabulary is inadequate to give a proper description or account of something that is incredibly special or moving. It's not that we have an inadequate vocabulary; it is usually just a case of emotion temporarily overwhelming our communication skill... we can't find the words.

When we were very young, our vocabularies were quite limited. I fondly remember learning new vocabulary words in elementary school. As we grew older, through learning and experience, our vocabularies expanded giving us the database for our written and verbal skills. And it is common knowledge that reading is one of the most powerful ways for children (and adults) to be exposed to and retain vocabulary words. It is believed that an average 20-year old's vocabulary is 42,000 lexemes. (Sit, sits, sat, sitting are 4 words but they are forms of the same lexeme.)

So, having or not having words can be an issue of education/ breadth of vocabulary, a matter of articulation skill or lack thereof, a function of our current emotional state and/or preparedness, or any number of other factors.

All of these words and our ability to hear them, our knowledge of how to read them, and arrange them in such a way that allows us to understand and to express ourselves, reside in multiple regions in our brain. Psychologists and neuroscientists refer to the "language center" to encompass the various parts of the brain that collectively allow us to process language. And it's not just the words we hear, see, and speak. Our very thoughts and ideas are comprised of words/ language. Language is also an essential part of our working memory and cognitive capability.

Almost 8 years ago my wife began to have some struggles with normal communication. She was specifically having trouble with word-finding. When she would get hung up she'd say, "I can't get my words out" and that eventually progressed to "I don't have the words." After a multitude of tests and one very long neuropsychological examination, she was diagnosed with aphasia. And her aphasia was connected to cognitive, memory, and even some early motor issues (apraxia.)  In a nutshell... dementia.

Dementia isn't really a disease in and of itself and not all dementias are the same.

Dementia is a brain condition caused by an underlying disease such as Alzheimer's or other diseases like Parkinson's, or vascular disease, or primary progressive aphasia, to name a few. We often think of dementia as primarily memory loss but it involves so many other things.

In Carol's case, the primary areas of her brain that are damaged and are shrinking are the frontal and temporal areas. Eventually the damage will move deeper into areas of the brain that control some pretty important functional parts of the body.

Over the last 8 years, we have moved from "I don't have the words" (which are themselves spoken words in a sentence) to very few words spoken at all. I frequently wonder what her thoughts are. Or if she can still pray silently. I wonder if there is any communication in her dreams. I like to think that there's more going on in her head and it just isn't being made known to all of us.

And, despite this terrible road she has been on, she's the same sweet Carol I've known for nearly 42 years

And how much does she mean to me? 

I don't have the words.

Disclaimer: I don't profess to be a doctor, scientist, or expert and therefore what I have written may not perfectly describe the subject matter. I've written what my understanding is from my own observations and research these last few years. Some of it may be a bit inaccurate but, I'm not trying to write a medical abstract. I'm just sharing my opinions and thoughts. Look, I'm just a husband. (But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.)

Some of you may feel that I am oversharing about my wife's illness. I will respond this way. I am finding that expressing my thoughts about this journey is therapeutic for me. I'm not much for journaling so this has become my outlet to write some thoughts down. And maybe this is informative for at least some of you. So, if that's OK, I'll continue sharing my thoughts until I no longer want to or am no longer able. I'm encouraged that we finally speak very openly about conditions affecting women's ta-tas and men's prostates but, we seem to shrink to only whispers in secret when it comes to maladies of and injuries to the brain. We shouldn't feel constrained about talking about this subject. So many people and families are affected by it.

Thanks for reading.

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Cheap? ...or just thrifty?

Stretch that thing

My parents were divorced in 1959. I wasn't even 4-years old. After the divorce, mom and we three kids moved in with my grandmother who, only a couple of years earlier, had become a widow. She operated a nursing home and it had an attached personal residence in the back. A nursing home would be where I called home for the next four years until my mother remarried and we moved away to Boston.

My grandmother was born in 1905. When the US stock market crashed in October 1929, marking the beginning of the Great Depression, she was newly married and soon to be pregnant with her first child (my mother.) My mother's earliest memories would have been ones overwhelmingly influenced by the brutal economic climate and the unimaginable social calamity of her earliest childhood years. Bread lines, unemployment, homelessness, and general malaise and hopelessness were the order of the day for millions of people. Fortunately, our family fared better than some.

There was a motto during those times: "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without." Frugality was required and it affected how most households operated. If you had any available greenspace, you planted a vegetable garden. Meals were dominated by one-pot varieties, casseroles, soups, lower-cost meals like macaroni and cheese, beans and franks, and creamed asparagus or chipped beef on toast. And you never wasted anything, especially food. It was considered sinful to waste food. 

By the time I came along in the mid-50s, I was living with two women that knew how to squeeze every drop out of every dollar spent. Most of my clothes had been my brother's a few years earlier. We never threw away any bread no matter how stale it became (mold was the determining factor, not freshness.) I remember smelling the milk (every time) before pouring it to check for the aroma of sourness. If I thought it was sour I'd tell my grandmother and she would say, "drink it... it's fine." She was right, of course. (But it really was becoming sour.)

I find it pretty funny that I still live, in many ways, with one foot in the depression-influenced environment in which I was raised and the life of plenty I have enjoyed most of my adult life.

I think nothing of spending $9 for a cup of coffee (w/ tip) from my favorite coffee shop but I still feel the urge to invert a virtually empty ketchup bottle directly on top of the newly opened one to get the last $0.26 worth of that Heinz goodness into the new bottle.

still some in there

You'd think it was frankincense from biblical times.

I don't think twice about buying a $200 DeWalt power tool that I may actually only use 3 times before that tool sees its first birthday... and yet, I still hesitate throwing out a jar of Better Than Bouillon in my refrigerator that has a "Best used by" date of 2022 (because I know it is still usable and won't kill anyone.)

My life straddles the world of encyclopedias and the AI driven search engines of 2024. I'm a guy that gets all my money's worth out of my Amazon Prime membership but still has the urge to wash out and re-use Ziplock bags (I don't though.) I am doing better.... you'll find no leftovers in margarine or Cool Whip containers (I can't write Cool Whip without hearing Stewie from Family Guy say Cool Hwip.)

We always seem to have and make good use of leftovers. "I can make a meal for us out of these leftovers from the last 3 days," I say. I feel so accomplished when we "clean out the fridge" like I have successfully taken all my scraps of cloth and made an heirloom quilt (I've never made a quilt, btw.)

So, my question is, am I cheap or am I just thrifty?

I think the answer is yes.

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Is This Really Living?

It is good, right?

There is a term that has been around since the 1950s called Activities of Daily Living... ADL. The term is used to describe the 6 most basic functional "skills" that adults should possess. They are:

• Ambulating- moving from point to point and walking independently
• Feeding- feeding yourself
• Dressing- choosing appropriate clothing and dressing yourself
• Personal hygiene- bathing, grooming, maintaining your dental hygiene, nails and hair
• Continence- controlling your bladder and bowel function
• Toileting- getting to and from the toilet and "tidying up" afterwards

According to the National Institute of Health, there is also a list of "Instrumental" ADLs. These are:

• Transportation and shopping
• Managing finances
• Shopping and meal preparation (shopping is evidently important)
• Housecleaning and home maintenance
• Managing communication with others
• Managing medications

I can't help but stay focused on the term "daily living." I know these described capabilities are primarily used to assess the degree to which adults may or may not need to be dependent on someone else to navigate pretty basic but necessary things. (I am intimately familiar with all of this these days.) And I don't really have a better description to offer to what they call "daily living." But there has to be more to daily living than the 6 basics and 6 bonus items above, right? I mean, wouldn't this be better described as "daily existing?" Is what's listed above... really living?

I vaguely remember my high school psychology class but I do remember reading about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It was like the food pyramid only completely different. I know I need nuts, grains, and vegetables but, according to Maslow,  I also need intimate relationships and self actualization, among other things.

Source: Chiquo, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

So, if I have all these needed things, does that mean that I am truly living? Or am I just surviving, or existing, or is there some other basal term that is appropriate?

There has to be more to life than food, and shelter, and toileting, and shopping, and holding a fork, and being creative, and balancing a checkbook, right? I realize my question smacks of a myopic, first-world interrogatory but, my question remains nonetheless.

Isn't there more to life than having these core needs met?

Maybe the bible can help me out here. I'm not looking to merely get by, to only navigate from one day to the next until death us do part. So, I went looking to see what scripture says about life's intention. Well, as it turns out, there is a whole lot to be found there about how we should live our life and what our expectations can be in doing so. In fact, there is so much there that this blog won't remotely be able to do it justice. But one verse in particular stands out.

Jesus is answering the Pharisees in John chapter 10 (Jesus had just healed a man who was born blind and the Pharisees were fixated on his potential rule breaking and the reason for the man's blindness rather than the miracle Jesus had just performed.) In Chapter 10, Jesus explains why He came and uses the metaphorical image of being the Good Shepherd. The shepherd would lay down his life for his sheep. His sheep know him and know him so well that they can pick out his voice above all the noisy voices that might surround them. And then Jesus says this at the end of verse 10 (I'm quoting from the New American Standard version because this was my very first bible... given to me by my wife.) "...I came so that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (emphasis mine) Now that sounds better than activities and needs.

The Greek word used for abundant is περισσὸν (perissos) and Barnes' Notes on the Bible commentary translates it this way:

"Literally, that they may have abundance, or that which abounds. The word denotes that which is not absolutely essential to life, but which is superadded to make life happy. They shall not merely have life – simple, bare existence – but they shall have all those superadded things which are needful to make that life eminently blessed and happy.”

Thayer's Greek Lexicon defines perissos/ abundant as: "over and above, more than is necessary, superadded"

With all due respect to Sidney Katz' ADLs and Maslow's pyramid of needs, I'm pretty sure I want an abundant life. 

I want what Jesus is offering. I don't want to just get by day-by-day. And I'm not talking about material things or what the world would say is an abundant life. I want to live life with a different perspective and a different priority. I want what my Creator intended for me.

And that's why I have been a Jesus follower since 1984. And He is faithful.

Carol and I could not navigate our "daily living" without Him.

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New American Standard Bible Copyright© 1960 - 2020 by The Lockman Foundation.

Broken Toys

 

Carol and I were up in Asheville a few weekends ago to visit with our son, his wife, and their adorable 16-month old son (or as we like to say, our adorable grandson.) Asheville has been one of our favorite places for many years, long before they ever moved there... in fact, long before our kids were even born. While there, they took us over to the River Arts District to walk through Marquee, which is a large artist's gallery/ antique mall. 

In one of the booths there was an old bicycle, probably from the 40s or 50s. I remember thinking that somebody must have decided long ago that this bike had value and, rather than just sending it to the junkpile, they kept it for all these years. Somebody found or bought it, cleaned it up a bit, and put a price tag on it that is many times more than what the bike sold for when it was brand new. I shared with Carol that, when I was a boy, my 3-year older brother had an old Rollfast brand bike which, well worn and largely beaten up, eventually got handed down to me and I promptly beat it up some more. It finally got replaced several years later when I purchased, with money I had earned one summer mowing lawns, a brand new Schwinn Varsity 10-speed. 

Rollfast

Both that old Rollfast and my Schwinn would probably be worth a lot now despite the fact that they were both well worn by the time I was done with them. I started to think about all the toys in my childhood that ended up discarded... considered to have no more value.

In 1991, I went on a mission trip to Panama to help construct a church building to replace an old raggedy tent they had been using for worship. It was shortly after Christmas (the dry season) and there were dozens of kids around the church site because that time of year was like their summer vacation from school. I remember one kid playing with some sort of stick toy for hours on end. When I finally went over to talk with him I got a closer look at his "toy." Picture a wooden stick with the cardboard insert of a toilet paper roll glued on the end and then a feather glued to the cardboard tube. (I asked AI to make me a picture from my description... see below)

AI's interpretation of it

At least that was all that remained of what his parents originally made for him as his Christmas toy. From a distance, I had been amazed watching him play with it for hours. I was humbled deeply when I saw up close what most of us would consider a sad, useless bunch of trash glued together. Despite its current condition, this "broken toy" was still very valuable in this sweet boy's eyes. He could not have been more proud of that toy. After all, it was a gift. But most of us don't have the same attitude as that little boy.

I think sometimes our attitude towards people can be similar to how we think about broken toys. Broken toys are no longer useful, right? But what about broken people?

People that battle with alcohol or drug addiction. Steer clear of these people. They're not worth the effort. Talk about broken.

People that have failed. Failed in school, failed in business, failed in marriage. Failures. Failure may be contagious. Ease away from these unsuccessful folks.

People that are struggling and their struggles make us feel too uncomfortable. Debilitating physical illness, mental health challenges, terminal disease, ambulatory problems. These toys are no fun to play with anymore. I mean, they don't even work right. Let's just play with the unbroken ones.

We live in a disposable world. In many cases, that disposability makes things easier and more convenient. I think some of that disposability has carried over into other parts of our lives, our relationships, and our society in general. Disposing of people can also be easier and more convenient rather than showing them that they still matter and have worth to us. 

People shouldn't be disposable or forgotten. Even the broken ones.

Maybe especially the broken ones. Broken toys still have value.

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