As I have aged I have discovered how important it is to walk my talk. My words mean nothing if I don’t live them. My life has been driven by my words, converted from my thoughts that, admittedly, have changed throughout these years.
And so on this Valentine’s Day, the one following nine long years of caregiving where I have truly learned the meaning of ‘love,’ I consciously, on purpose, walked my talk, and followed the motto that is on every page in this site, that is the theme of my life.
Do something each day to make others smile and your heart sing!
In keeping with the story I wrote yesterday, Little Love Letters, today I created little heart messages, printed them and cut them out. I took thirty with me to the grocery and pharmacy on our bi-weekly outing we have been limited to during the COVID pandemic.
I put some on shelves, others on top of canned goods, and cookie packages. I placed the four inch paper heart into grocery carts where no one was around at the moment. I gave them to the pharmacist team, to the cashier and assistant who bagged my few things. In the parking lot I slipped one into the pocket of the boy pushing the carts back into the store. I put one in the hand of the young man monitoring how many customers had gone in and out of the store, another practice resulting from distancing requirements during the coronavirus period.
It was interesting to observe those who did see me. Suspicion was evident on their faces. After all, I was wearing the protocol-required COVID mask, plus a winter coat with a scarf wrapped up around my neck. I did not know most of the recipients and they certainly did not know me. One pushed my hand away, another looked at the paper first and began not to take it, although she did in the end. One saw the heart on their egg carton and looked around to see where it came from. One thanked me. Two women put them in their pocket ‘to take home’ to their family.
I, on the other hand, felt rather giddy. I felt what my sister called ‘tee-hee happiness’ doing something so much fun. “A flashmob of one” she called me. I did not sign the hearts. I just cautiously watched others turn a glum face into a smile. THAT felt really good! It made my Valentine’s Day much more special than any I could remember. I will probably do something similar another day…another holiday, another excuse to make people smile.
It was fun. I encourage you to find a way to do something that gives you “tee-hee” happiness.
Each day, do something that makes others smile and your heart sing!
Shared love can be with anyone, not just between caregivers and loved ones! I ‘received’ lots of love this week and it felt good! Let’s all spread some love!!
While cleaning out my desk used for over thirty-five years, I uncovered an old leathery piece of history. I knew by the zipper around the edges of this once loved, soft, brown find, with the colorfully embossed school images, that I was holding my one and only autograph book.
Immediately, my thoughts shifted to friends from elementary school who wrote on those pages sixty-eight years ago. It was a different time and place I have seldom returned to since. I even had a flashback of a high school friend signing her name. Here was a real treasure.
Surprised to see it, I stopped cleaning and started remembering. I sat on the side of the bed and carefully unzipped the book. There in pencil, on faded and brown smudged pages, beside a small sticker of a camp I had attended two summers, I had written my name in cursive. I had noted it had been a present for my eleventh birthday from a new friend, one I remember being in my life until our family moved to another place.
A small gold and purple card fell to the ground, a reminder of a high school moment in October 1959 when I was chosen Panther of the Week my senior high school year, a warm memory. I put it between the back pages and read on.
It was fun to bring up memories of the sweet young friends who had signed their names, who had inscribed little sayings they had learned, or even had written personal notes, or their personalized poems.
“Roses are red, violets are blue….” …Sugar is sweet, and you are too. Or …Sugar is sweet, and I love you. 💖 Or …You love Jim, and I do, too. Or …I like pecans, and nuts to you.”
And then, “Down in the valley carved on a tree, are two little words, “Remember me!””
And, “I’ll be yours ‘til Russia fries Turkey in Greece and serves it on China to the US.” These were not likely political thoughts then, but just fun words.
Most entries were signed with full names, in various degrees of their cursive evolution. Some added a ‘closing’ remark, like: “Your good pal,” or “Your best girl friend” or “Love ya,” or “The one behind you who pulls your hair,” or “The boy who draws maps.”
I found one entry from a friend who is still my friend, after sixty-six years!
There is one page with large swirling letters that reads: “Gene Autry,” a singing cowboy star of the day. I had asked him to sign after seeing him in a show back in those young years. I truly don’t recall the show!
I even found incomplete entries by my own two children when each had just learned to print. Like many kiddos, they probably had been ‘looking around’ and had found the book and wanted to sign it, too. I am glad their attempted ‘love letters’ were added twenty years later!
My book is signed by teachers, principals, school friends, church friends, camp counselors, camper friends, and even my six year old brother, ten year old sister, plus an aunt and uncle. It covers eight of my younger years. My life is reflected in those pages by people who have impacted my life, important enough for me to want them to sign my autograph book.
Of course, the universe ‘helped me find’ this prized possession just as Valentine’s 💘 Day appeared on the calendar, just in time for me to begin thinking of the importance of ‘little love letters’ that I could write when “time permits.”
What a collection to find! How fitting their words are, how they coincide with the memories that I recall about each person. The funny ones, the studious ones, the sweet ones, the jokers, the athletes, those I did not know well and those I had known since fourth grade … I can put a young face to most, but not all. It feels rather good, after these years, to know I did have those friends.
And more, it generates a sense of loving that part of my life, knowing that through the years I had so many ‘friends’ who even signed my book. That made me feel really good now, years later. Not one mentioned my myasthenia gravis issues. Not one made fun of my height that seemed to showup before others in my class. No one told me I wore clunky shoes. Oh, some said funny things, most had a touch of kindness, and some just signed their name. But what a wonderful, happy, loving, memory upon which I can reflect in these elder years. Those autographs from years ago became notes of love that still make me laugh or feel warm fuzzies today. Even cry.
As I was reflecting on how reading these pages made me feel so happy, I recalled a program online where we focus on gratitude, on appreciation and caring for others and how those others have impacted our lives. We think about, appreciate, and write out our thoughts. Sometimes we go further and encourage others or thank them and acknowledge the wisdom they have shared.
In the end, we reassure ourselves of the love we have to give to others – not just to caregivers and loved ones.
Happy Valentine’s Day, dear friends.
In the spirit of Love inspired by Valentine’s 💘 Day, I want to ‘encourage encouragement’ by spreading love through writing little love letters. I suggest topics below that might nudge you forward to spread some love, to let even just one someone know how much they mean to you…child, parent, friend, relative, co-worker, someone you know, someone you have never met. There is no boundary surrounding the potential of our love.
When the spirit moves, you can write to someone to leave a mark on their heart and in their memory, a warm fuzzy for them to open and re-read at some point, realizing the difference your words might make in their life, now or later, just as these autographs have done for me.
Ideas that come to mind now:
a short note in a lovely greeting card
a brief message texted,
a handwritten letter with specifics
a labour of love with photos and drawings illuminating your words.
an easy peasy ‘tee-hee hapiness’ is putting hearts on paper with a quote and dropping them like confetti on the shelves of a store, grocery, pharmacy, bookstore, or anywhere that is open. Put them in mail boxes along your street. No signautre, just message of love. See Tee-Hee Happiness page here.
These ‘encouragers,’ in the spirit of Valentine’s 💘 Day, help us think of fitting little love letters for those who hold a meaningful place in our life. In the same way you as readers continue to inspire me to encourage you, I, too, hope to be inspired to reassure, comfort and lift others up throughout the year!
💝 Have a loving day.
Each day, do something that makes others smile and your heart sing!
Little Love Letters (c) 2021 Judith Allen Shone
💝 Remember, caregivers need love, too! 💝
Ice cream 🍦 and cookies 🍪 seem to be an appropriate sweet treat on Valentine’s Day!
Books available to order locally or online from your favourite book site, or from AMAZON, anywhere… or visit Caregiver-books.com Check-out page.
Thank you for joining me. . . . . .you are my sunshine!!
Have you as a caregiver encountered any communication issues recently? If you realize it could happen along your path, maybe you can reduce your stress and worry by knowing others struggle with this as well!
Back then, My Love was beginning to have serious problems finding words to explain his thoughts.
I wondered how terrible it must feel to be unable to ‘call up words on demand’ to speak your thoughts. At that time, if no other way worked, he used charades, a concept replacing the word with an idea, communicated via an ‘acting’ mode.
Memory loss is not just forgetting where you put the keys, not just taking longer to think of a friend’s name, not just bringing home eggs when you meant to buy bread. I have witnessed My Love’s Alzheimer’s brain, the boss of the bodily functions, destroy his abilities on all levels, bit by bit, nipping at a life that once emanated from the person, the life that once dazzled the world with vitality. His lost words are just like his weakening ability to walk, and his body’s confusion about when he is supposed to sleep.
I know how frustrating it is when I cannot magically find ‘that one word’ to describe what I am trying to convey. But to lose connection to all our words must be more than discouraging, unless of course, you have memory loss, plus anosognosia, and don’t know it is happening.
In the months since I told about My Love’s word finding difficulties, his Alzheimer’s has progressed. His memories and recognition of his daily surroundings, have all but disappeared right along with his words. He can no longer use charades because the concept does not seem to be able to transmit to the ‘acting’ part of his brain.
On the other hand, now I must try acting out what I am asking of him. For instance, to take his pills, I put one pill in my hand and raise it to my mouth…wait for him to follow. Then I put the glass of juice in my hand and lift it, to show to drink it with the pill…wait for him to follow. Sometimes he does not understand this and I must take the glass, put it in his hand and lift both hand and glass to his mouth to get him to grasp what I try to say with words. And sometimes, it is more complicated than ‘acting out’ with pills!
Caregiving just takes a great deal of patience, counting to ten, being able to be flexible, going with the flow, one moment at a time. I aim at being kind, knowing I do the best I can with what I know at the time. 🥰
It is incredible to note how common it has become when one sentence cannot be completed. Like a child, the sounds come, one or two at a time. But My Love’s 81-year-old sounds are not necessarily recognizable as words anymore. The attempts are there. He realizes, momentarily, when he cannot find the right word. And then he tries again…not remembering that he tried to find that word just moments earlier. I am aware of his brief frustration from word loss; but, that, too, disappears quickly.
Sadly, the magic of my soul needs recharging. Yes, I become impatient listening, but I do try to help by suggesting words— it is hard to find words he understands! He does not even understand when I try to act out the words. The connections are definitely disrupted.
It is my job, me, My Love’s partner and caregiver of over eight years, to step in, with a smile and laughter, to bring life back into his face, vitality into his life. I guess at the words he cannot find, as if I could magically discover his thoughts and say them out loud…but my magic wand does not always work!
It has become difficult for him to give me a clue. His ability to get the thought from his mind to his mouth seems to have been cut short by the brain areas that control those complex functions. The available means to tell me have diminished and, as a result, so do our conversations.
My Love may be losing many of his words, but he does still have feelings. He still can laugh, he still looks at me with a heart-felt, kind smile, a sense of thankfulness that I am there, an uncertain awareness of what is going on around him. Yes, even if he cannot explain them, he still has feelings.
At times, I chuckle when I respond to him with what I guess he might be saying—he still has his scripts, so deeply embedded, that his response will invariably be, ‘right,’ or ‘I know’ or a nod of the head, even when the answer I give could not possibly be correct!
Every so often, I wonder if I can keep my caregiving magic alive during the later stages of Alzheimer’s. I have been told it will become harder to communicate as we walk the later steps of this journey together…I, too, am learning! But like I have done since day one, I will remain My Love’s ally and partner, his caregiver, regardless of what I am asked to do.
I can’t stop… even if I am getting tired…it is time to get the wizardry back into my life and get the magic, beginning to flicker in that wand, recharged!
🌞I hope this little update of a caregiver’s life in the world of Alzheimer’s magically melts away some stress for you today!!🌞
Before you leave, check out the rest of this site especially Caregiver Tips!! Sign up to get notices…and we’ll watch for you next time….! 🌞💝🌷 ~ jas
Each day, do something that makes others smile and your heart sing.
Accepting the Gift of Caregiving 